Books of the Week

Kanishk Tharoor

What is more important to identity: how we see ourselves, or how others see us? Our abilities, or the role we play in society? Which is the stronger definition? Answers to these questions shift within this dazzling first book of short stories by New York City-based writer Kanishk Tharoor, who cherry-picks from Indian history and culture to imbue his prose with a quiet confidence that the reader will follow, even if they do not grasp the full significance. This is epitomised in the title tale, which explores the relationship between an old woman and her childhood language, of which she is the final speaker. She bamboozles academics by creating new words that they may never understand – questioning the beauty and purpose of verbal communication. Referring to protagonists by their job or function, rather than a name, both recalls the caste system and transforms them into fairytale characters – even if they are an elephant trainer sent to direct their steed from India to Morocco, or a UN ambassador orbiting the remains of a flooded Earth on a space hotel, or a coal miner whose portrait is taken for a Western magazine. Each story expertly explores a tantalisingly different worldview - resulting in a near-perfect collection.

Reservoir 13

Jon McGregor

A 13-year-old girl goes missing while staying in the Peak District with her family for New Year. This is the opening of McGregor's fourth novel, Reservoir 13, but don't be fooled by the initial suggestion of crime drama – this unconventional narrative is not interested in pace, plot, or answering any of the questions it poses. With a chapter for each year following the disappearance, inhabitants of the rural village find their dreams and imagination haunted by Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex. However, mostly, life carries on as before and McGregor's collage-style narration delves in and out of different experiences within the community. We dwell briefly on a scene in the life of a complicated marriage, a dying parent, a lonely widow, a struggling farmer – before moving on. As the details cumulate over the years, poignant stories slowly emerge. In amongst all this, McGregor includes details of the surrounding natural world; the badger sett, fox family, bird movements, and seasonal changes. It all makes for a unique reader experience, which can be enjoyable if you have the patience to withstand the teasingly sparse plot.

The Walworth Beauty

Michele Roberts

Split narratives; female and male; then and now. In The Walworth Beauty, the latest novel from previously Booker-shortlisted Roberts, two lives separated by more than a century begin to intersect across time. In 1851, family man Joseph is commissioned by Henry Mayhew to conduct research on the lives of prostitutes in south London. Meanwhile, in 2011, Madeleine – middle-aged, divorced and unemployed – has hopes of finding a new life in Apricot Place in Bermondsey. Roberts interrogates past and present through vivid detail, from the velvet-slippered rooms of the Victorian pleasure houses to the slick city bars in the modern metropolis. The Walworth Beauty is most successful in showing how time is woven into contemporary life and how the past informs the present.

The Reality Frame: Relativity And Our Place In The Universe

Brian Clegg

Clegg, who studied physics at Cambridge, has made a specialism of writing about science for non-scientists. In this book, he explores the big ideas of science by building the entire universe from scratch, from space, time, matter and gravitation through to life and the creative faculty which he sees as distinctively human. At last, thought hopelessly non-scientific old me, I shall master quantum physics and the general theory of relativity. Some hope. Certainly, the language seems clear enough, and the author is a friendly and supportive guide. There are fascinating vignettes from the history of science and a huge field of knowledge is covered. But the concepts – however clearly explained – rest on other concepts, understanding of which is sometimes assumed, and the abstractions mount up. There is so much in this world of antiparticles and dark matter and quantum loops that is fascinating, but alien. And terrifyingly, despite Clegg's plea for school syllabuses to look beyond old-hat Newtonian science to focus more on relativity, there is apparently still so much about the fundamental nature of existence that remains guesswork. After reading this book I am none the wiser, but it's really not him, it's me.