The Last Tour of Archie Forbes by Victoria Hendry (Saraband, £8.99)
Hendry’s second novel isn’t for the fainthearted, dealing as it does with post-traumatic stress disorder in one Archie Forbes, back from seeing action in Afghanistan. From the start, Hendry offers an utterly realistic and unforgettable portrayal, somehow downbeat yet bordering on hysteria at the same time, and she doesn’t let up throughout.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (Oxford World Classics, £9.99)
It’s easy to be appalled at the notion of slavery, but this astonishing account, published in 1861, by Harriet Jacobs, born a slave in the American South, emphasises the personal experience, not the notion. She makes us feel the minutiae of daily life as a slave, the messy family ties between slaves and slave owners, the abuse and threats.
Pacific by Tom Drury (Old Street Publishing, £12)
Drury’s style is a mix of the surreal and the prosaic, perfectly suited to his tales of the townsfolk of Grouse County, set in the mid-west. This third in the series pits the small town against the lure of the city, when teenage Micah heads off to LA from Grouse to look for his mother. Real people with all their quirks abound.
The World Hegemon: The British Isles 1832-1914 by William D. Rubinstein (Vintage, £10.99)
Almost any kind of overview of a century is going to sacrifice detail for generality. Although Rubinstein supplies figures and dates for his condensed picture of Britain during its age of greatest expansion, there aren’t many surprises here and more than a few unquestioned assumptions, especially in relation to gender.
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