THE BEST PAPERBACKS

FICTION Autumn Ali Smith Penguin €15.99 Smith’s latest novel revolves around the extraordinary friendship between a young girl and her elderly next-door neighbour. It flashes backwards and forwards across the years, dissolving time and memory, yet manages in the process to give an unforgettable impression of what it’s like to live in post-Brexit Britain. Pure literary magic. FICTION Nightmare in Berlin Hans Fallada Scribe €12 Written in the immediate aftermath of the war, this partly autobiographical novel records in powerful detail the reality of life for Germans living in a defeated and occupied country. Fallada was no Nazi but he chose to stay in Germany after many other writers had left and his book bears the marks of a man wrestling with his conscience. NON-FICTION Bolshoi Confidential Simon Morrison 4th Estate €12.95 The Bolshoi Ballet is an icon of the Russian state but its origins date back to an 18th-century English entrepreneur who won the favour of Catherine the Great. This is but one of many fascinating stories to emerge in Morrison’s dramatic account of an artistic institution that grew famous under the tsars and reinvented itself in the Bolshevik era. FICTION The Ludlow Ladies’ Society Ann O’Loughlin Black & White Publishing €14.99 Grief-stricken New Yorker Connie Carter discovers her husband has bought Ludlow Hall, a crumbling mansion in Co Wicklow. She flies over and there she meets Eve – who once owned the property until it was repossessed – and local woman Hetty. Connie opens the house to the local crafts group, the Ludlow Ladies’ Society, and it is here this circle of friends sew memory quilts. Patch by patch, the secrets of their pasts emerge and Ann O’Loughlin gently guides their raw hurt and anger into acceptance.