FAIR PLAY by Tove Jansson
The biographical notes on Jansson's acclaimed children's books, the Moomin tales, used to say that she lived alone on an island. In fact, she spent more than 40 years with her female partner, Tuulikki Pietila, an artist, and much of this form-defying novel reads like an intimate autobiography. Mari, a writer and illustrator, and Jonna, an artist and film-maker, live on an island at opposite ends of an apartment. Nothing of consequence happens. They watch over a boat tethered in a storm, squabble over old Westerns, get lost in a fog, put off work and go to war with it. Jansson's artistry lies in turning these seemingly random vignettes into profound meditations on the subtle conflicts and compromises that challenge and cement long-term relationships deeply underscored by love.
(Sort of Books £6.99). LSJ
HAV by Jan Morris
In 1985, Morris created Hav, a fictional city-state in the Mediterranean. She painted a detailed and highly imaginative picture of its society and its inhabitants, culminating in the dramatic "Intervention" that changed its course for ever. In this novel, she returns to see how modernity and a religious and political overhaul have changed this extraordinary metropolis over the intervening years. Morris evokes Hav in such vivid and atmospheric prose, littered with historical and geographical detail, that it is hard to believe that it is made-up. The place itself is an allegory - the political turmoil, religious confusion and the pace of change that she describes are to be found in cities throughout the world.
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(Faber £7.99). JW
COLOUR BAR: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and his Nation by Susan Williams
Khama, the heir to the kingship of the Bangwato people in the British colony of Bechuanaland (later Botswana), was a student in England in the 1940s when he married a white woman. The marriage was against the wishes not only of both families but also the governments of Britain, South Africa and southern Rhodesia. The union revealed the colour bar to be as active in Britain as it was in apartheid South Africa. Williams's greatest success in this brilliant biography is to show how Khama's personal struggle for acceptance and tolerance was mirrored throughout Britain's African colonies in their battle for independence. His eventual triumph as the first president of newly independent Botswana makes a fitting climax to a moving book.
(Penguin £9.99). IC
MY DIRTY LITTLE BOOK OF STOLEN TIME by Liz Jensen
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If you read only one book this summer featuring a 19th-century Danish prostitute, a time machine and a stuffed primate, make it Jensen's rollicking fantasy. The story is told by Charlotte, a spirited strumpet, who, along with a gluttonous companion, is hired by the vile Fru Krak to be her serf. In the basement of their employer's home, they discover a Heath Robinson-like gizmo that transports them from 1897 Copenhagen to the "Tin City" of modern London. It is here, among a conspicuously large number of her time-travelling fellow countrymen, that Charlotte falls in love, faces wrenching choices and generally saves the day. Buzzing with a life of its own, Jensen's gleeful fairy tale has an imaginative fecundity that compensates for the juddery plot and sketchily delineated supporting cast.
(Bloomsbury £7.99). TL
WORDS AND DEEDES: Selected Journalism 1931-2006 by WF Deedes
Deedes has had an extraordinarily full life as a journalist, a soldier in the second world war, a Conservative MP, a shadow cabinet member and the editor of The Daily Telegraph. The range and excitement of this life is fully reflected in this fascinating selection from 75 years of his writing. There are around 330 articles covering such subjects as the second world war, the British and the royal family, international affairs, social issues and Africa. And he has an impish streak that comes out when he describes the apparent political seduction of the Queen by Tony Benn. Most poignant, however, are his accounts of returning to Normandy after the war to travel around areas he had earlier fought in, and his description of Bremen, the victim of saturation bombing by the RAF in 1942.
(Pan £9.99). SB
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AMAZING DISGRACE by James Hamilton-Paterson
Readers who ingested the author's previous novel, the nicely tart Cooking with Fernet Branca, will be all too familiar with Gerald Samper, its dyspeptic protagonist - an effete prig, a ghostwriter of cheesy sporting autobiographies and a crackpot epicurean whose exotic culinary inventions ("Gun-Dog Pate", "Death Roe") owe more to Anthony Bourdain than Mrs Beeton. Languishing in his Tuscan hideaway, Samper yearns to write a biography of the conductor Max Christ, but is saddled with the memoirs of the insufferable Millie Cleat, a one-armed yachting grandmother who is much given to cod spiritualism and egomania ("She makes Narcissus seem self-effacing"). Not unlike like the hero's recipe for "Badger Wellington", Hamilton-Paterson's novel is an acquired taste, and while there are sprinklings of tangy wit, this second helping of Samper might prove one too many
(Faber £7.99). TL
STRANGE BLOOMS: The Curious Lives and Adventures of the John Tradescants by Jennifer Potter
The two John Tradescants were 17th-century botanists and travellers who deserve to be better remembered. Tradescant Sr journeyed as far afield as Russia and North Africa in search of unusual plants for his aristocratic employers; his son crossed the Atlantic to burgeoning British colonies in America to gather exotic flora. Tradescant's Ark in Lambeth, which housed their collection of botanic novelties and natural curiosities, was one of the wonders of the age. After their deaths, the unscrupulous antiquarian Elias Ashmole hijacked the collection, and the Ashmolean museum in Oxford that was built for it bears his name, not theirs. Potter's engaging account of the Tradescants' travels and tribulations goes some way towards restoring the fame of which Ashmole robbed them.
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(Atlantic £9.99). NR
HEAT: How We Can Stop the Planet Burning by George Monbiot
The British government has committed itself to a 60% cut in carbon emissions by 2050. This, says Monbiot, is too little too late. To prevent global warming, he proposes a 90% reduction by 2030, and this impressive book shows how it could be done, albeit with a heavy investment by the world's governments and a massive change of attitude in the rest of us. Monbiot is an immensely persuasive writer, if occasionally naive. Would consumers really stop buying plasma-screen televisions if the manufacturers advertised the fact that their product used five times more electricity than a conventional television? That aside, this inspiring book is essential reading.
(Penguin £8.99). IC
ONE GOOD TURN by Kate Atkinson
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When Martin, a mild-mannered detective-novelist, flings his laptop at a thug, preventing a road-rage murder, he sets in motion the first of a series of mysteries that twists open each episode of Atkinson's literary thriller to reveal another mystery inside. Russian dolls are the key both to the novel and the crime: Martin's own souvenir set hides a secret; a Slavic dominatrix induces heart attacks and heartbreak; and former cop Jackson Brodie (Atkinson's softly spoken answer to Philip Marlowe) is haunted by a Baltic beauty that he fails to save from the sea. Point-blank prose, a cracking pace and hard-bitten sympathy add depth to this compulsive novel, while the nail-biting conclusion leaves a few unanswered questions and a memorable row of empty lives.
(Black Swan £7.99). CM
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