After the success of his bestselling Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which revealed the dirty secrets of Savannah in Georgia, Berendt moved to Venice and has done the same for that city in this glittering, entertaining and anecdote-filled book. He rents a flat in a former palazzo on a quiet canal and begins to experience Venetian life. He takes as a theme the investigation into the burning down in 1996 of the Fenice, the city’s magnificent opera house, the plans to rebuild it and the corruption and inefficiency that are exposed. Elsewhere, he describes the bitter feud that has split the Seguso glass-making dynasty
(Sceptre £7.99). SB
SWIMMING UNDERWATER
by Sheena Joughin
Ruth is living in London and, in a desultory fashion, is working on a book about poets. Lines by Yeats, Larkin and Adrienne Rich float through her consciousness as she deals with a fatally ill friend and her own failing relationship. These concerns remind her of her 1960s upbringing by a psychiatrist mother and a poet aunt, and her long fascination with Gray, a childhood friend. Gray’s reappearance evokes both joyful and anxious memories as Ruth tries to identify his place in her current life. Joughin shows as much as she tells, painting moments or scenes with intricate intensity, while leaving certain connections unexplained. Her prose has an appealing darkness and urgency, as she potently conveys the pleasures and pains of human interactions
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(Black Swan £6.99). ES-B
IVAN THE TERRIBLE
by Isabel de Madariaga
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A contemporary of Elizabeth I, to whom he wrote inquiring about the possibility of political asylum if his subjects revolted and kicked him out, Ivan the Terrible remains the most infamous of Russian tsars, his legendary reputation as a tyrant still potent. Isabel de Madariaga’s biography trawls through the surprisingly thin records of his life and times to assess the truth behind the myths. A scrupulous scholar, she has written a book that makes brilliant use of the material at her disposal but general readers may sometimes find themselves wishing that she would relax her standards a little and indulge in the kind of speculation, however unscholarly, that might add more flesh to the bones of her characterisation of Ivan
(Yale £12.99). NR
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PLACE OF REEDS: A True African Love Story
by Caitlin Davies
Davies fell in love with Ron as a graduate student, and later moved to his homeland of Botswana. She embraces his family, but struggles to understand their traditions and accept their hierarchies. As editor of the local newspaper, her investigations of exploited Kalahari bushmen, political corruption and poorly handled rape cases make her a target for legal persecution. A violent attack in front of her baby and the brutal response of Ron’s family leave the author wrestling with her new African identity. She grapples with the contradictions of her adopted country, where HIV seems to coexist with witchcraft, and familial kindness with overbearing cruelty. The romantic title belies an unflinching account of how cultural and personal bonds are established, and far more painfully ruptured
(Pocket Books £7.99). ES-B
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THE BUS WE LOVED
by Travis Elborough
With its friendly curves, its platform at the back and its bell that went ding-ding (originally operated by pulling a cord, if you remember), the now defunct Routemaster was the Platonic ideal of a bus. But the open platform, so handy for jumping on, was equally handy for falling off, and in 2004 an American lawyer sued for £3m after his head hit the road in Putney High Street: the Routemaster, in fact, averaged two fatalities a year. Elborough’s cheerful memoir provides all manner of information about the vanished vehicle (initially designed with an aesthetic-sounding Chinese Green and Sung Yellow interior, we discover) and saves itself from coming across as simple trainspotter territory by the author’s savvy eye for cultural history
(Granta £7.99). PhB
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EXPLORERS OF THE NEW CENTURY
by Magnus Mills
Another tally-ho adventure from Mills. This time, it’s an eccentric fictional take on the contest to be first to the South Pole, as two early 20th-century explorers race to reach the “Agreed Furthest Point” from civilisation. Rival team leaders Johns and Tostig take separate routes across a windswept land with their charges of mules; Tostig’s men are better organised while Johns’s whinge and bicker, but they are otherwise worthy competitors and keep within each other’s sight. The majority of the book describes the day-to-day existence of the travelling men and their animals, with Mills’s very British brand of black humour cutting through the mundanity. Laconic but imaginative, he is a kind of Boy’s Own novelist whose tense little fable should keep fans out of trouble for at least an afternoon
(Bloomsbury £7.99). EU
EDGE OF EMPIRE
by Maya Jasanoff
Between 1750 and 1850, Britain’s imperial expansion, in India and elsewhere, brought Europeans into contact with unfamiliar and exotic cultures. On the edge of empire there were people who bridged the gap between West and East. These were the collectors — who were so fascinated by the societies they encountered that they began to accumulate their cultural artefacts. They are the heroes of this ground-breaking study. Jasanoff has fascinating tales to tell of men such as Antoine Polier, a former East India Company officer who became the first western collector of Indian manuscripts, and Giambattista Belzoni, the pioneering Egyptologist (and former circus strongman), but they all fit within an overarching and highly original narrative of the meeting and mingling of different cultures
(Harper Perennial £8.99). NR