THE BEST PAPERBACKS

NON-FICTION Who Lost Russia? Peter Conradi Oneworld €15.40

The fall of the Berlin Wall was meant to usher in a new era of co-operation between Russia and the West, but these days it often seems that the Cold War never ended. This engrossing study asks what went wrong. Conradi thinks things would have been different had someone other than Putin succeeded Yeltsin.

FICTION Lincoln In The Bardo George Saunders Bloomsbury €10.99

Saunders’s Man Booker prize-winning novel tells of the death of Abraham Lincoln’s 11-year-old son Willie. It’s a study of grief and bereavement, but what’s most extraordinary is the form: most of it consists of snippets of conversation between the ghosts who inhabit Willie’s tomb. Strange but brilliant.

MEMOIR Flesh And Blood Stephen McGann Simon & Schuster €12.60

McGann is best known for starring in the BBC’s Call The Midwife, but unlike most actors who play doctors he knows a bit about medical science, and he uses it to striking effect in this memoir. McGann traces the history of his family through the illnesses that have afflicted them. A powerful and affecting story.

MEMOIR Storytelling Andrew Sinclair Ashgrove €26.59

In this fascinating memoir Sinclair flits between academia and bohemia, novel-writing and Hollywood. Memorable episodes include the film of Under Milk Wood and the time he was holed up in a Cuban hotel with the Black Panthers. Simon Griffith

MEMOIR My Life in the IRA Michael Ryan Mercier Press €19.99

Former IRA Director of Operations Mick Ryan describes growing up in Dublin’s East Wall and his involvement in the ill-fated border campaign of the late 1950s. His memoir, which has drawn criticism from obvious quarters given its subject matter, is also a story of hardship and disappointment. Readers will wonder why anyone would persist with such a ludicrously hopeless endeavour. Ryan gives a rare insight into the mindset of young volunteers who saw fighting Britain as a ‘vocation’, while the majority of people on this island saw it as deluded and murderous. Dave Kenny