All you need to know about books at www.booksmonthly.co.uk                                                     Issue 4 July 2008

ETHAN CANIN: AMERICA AMERICA ~ It is the early 1970s; Nixon is in the White House and Corey Sifter, the young son of working-class parents, is befriended by the powerful Metarey family, whose patriarch is a kingmaker in the world of New York state politics. Corey becomes a yard-boy on the Metarey's grand estate, and soon, through the family's generosity, a student at a private boarding school. Before long, he is a confidant of the Metareys and an aide to the great New York Senator Henry Bonwiller as he runs for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.But as the Bonwiller presidential campaign gains momentum a crime is committed, and Corey is forced to reconcile his part in a complex tangle of morality, politics, gratitude, love and loyalty. Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and during one of the most turbulent eras of twentieth-century US politics, "America America" possesses the mastery of pace and voice of classic American fiction. Canin has written a magnificent novel about ambition and family, politics and crime, sex and love, small-town life and big-time power - and, ultimately, how vanity, greatness and tragedy combine to change history and fate.

WALTER MOSLEY: DIABLERIE ~ Is there anyone who doesn't wonder now and again about how differently their life could have turned out? About a more interesting, more adventurous, more dangerous past they could have had? Ben Dibbuk is married to the beautiful Mona, has a lovely daughter and a well-paid job in NYC - but he's been locked in this dream for more years than he can say. But nothing can prepare Ben for his chance meeting with Star, a mysterious woman at a launch for the hip magazine Diablerie - because Star claims to share a gruesome secret that Ben just can't remember.Has Star spun a diabolical web of lies, or could it be that something terrible really did happen back in June 1979? Ben's grip on the truth begins to falter, and the line between what really happened and what might have done becomes harder and harder to negotiate Walter Mosley, creator of sometime-fixer Easy Rawlins who appeared in classic thrillers such as "Devil in a Blue Dress", and recently, the shocking deliciously scandalous "Killing Johnny Fry", is one of former US president Bill Clinton's favourite authors.

MIGUEL SOUSA TAVARES: EQUATOR ~ Equator is a compellingly seductive historical novel set in early twentieth-century Lisbon following the story of Luis Bernardo, who gives up the hedonistic Lisbon life to become governor of the smallest Portuguese colony – the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe off the coast of equatorial Guinea. Tavares creates an engaging, urbane hero with a historical mission – to end slavery on the island’s coffee plantations and thus foil attempts by British imperial interests to stop trade with the chocolate manufacturers who do not want their chocolate contaminated by the sweat of slave labour. From the heat and dust of colonial politics Tavares masterfully conjures up a passionate story of love and betrayal, friendship and infidelity and the unravelling of a dark chapter in Portuguese history. Miguel Sousa Tavares was born in Oporto and is the author of several books of non-fi ction. Equator is his fi rst novel, the product of a long period of maturation and historical research inspired by a complex chapter in Portuguese history.

KATIE CROUCH: GIRLS IN TRUCKS ~ Sarah Walters is a reluctant Camellia Society debutante. She has always felt ill-fitted to the old-fashioned gentility of Southern womanhood and family life, but in Charleston, established rules and manners mean everything. As Sarah grows older, moving north and navigating love and life in New York, she and her group of displaced deb sisters try to define themselves within the realities of modern life. Heartbreak, illness, addiction, career disappointments: this was not the hazy, happy future promised to them by their Camellia mothers. But events outside her control - an unplanned pregnancy, a family death - lead Sarah back home to Charleston and to some difficult choices. And only then does she realise that as much as she tries to deny it, where she comes from will always affect where she ends up. Perhaps the motto 'Once a Camellia, always a Camellia' has more of a power over her than she would care to admit. Tender, hilarious and immensely readable, "Girls in Trucks" is a debut by a unique new voice.

PATRICK McGRATH: TRAUMA ~ Charlie Weir is a man who tackles other people's demons for a living. He has seen every kind of trauma during his years as a psychiatrist in New York City, and yet hasn't found a way to resolve the conflicts within his own family - his bitter rivalry with his brother Walt, a successful painter, his estrangement from his shiftless father and his stifling relationship with his dying mother. And he has never overcome the terrible blunder, seven years before, that lost him his wife and daughter, leaving him prone to corrosive loneliness and restless anger.When Walt introduces Charlie to Nora Chiara, he is drawn as much to her air of suffering as he is to her striking beauty. They fall for each other quickly, hungrily, but their bliss is short-lived. Her vulnerability, once so irresistible, begins to sour their life together, and Charlie realises that she is now patient first, lover second. And as he probes at the source of her distress, a half-memory from deep in his own unconscious mind begins to arouse a horrifying suspicion.

NATHAN HODGE & SHARON WEINBERGER: A NUCLEAR FAMILY VACATION ~ In "A Nuclear Family Vacation", husband-and-wife journalists Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger hit the open road to explore the secretive world of nuclear weaponry. Along the way, they soon realize that their travels are unearthing more questions than answers: Why are nuclear weapons still on hair-trigger alert? Is there such a thing as a suitcase nuke? Is Iran really building the bomb? Together, they lift the lid on the uncertain role of nuclear weapons in the modern world and ask if the future is as terrifying as it seems.Criss-crossing ten US states and five countries, Hodge and Weinberger visit top-secret locations: from the Esfahan Uranium Conversion Facility in Iran to 'Site R', a bunker known as the 'Underground Pentagon', rumoured to be Vice-President Cheney's personal 'undisclosed location' on 9/11; and from the former Soviet Union's network of closed cities, housing secret nuclear sites, to the Marshall Islands, which the US has turned into a nuclear playground of epic scale. Their atomic road trip reveals plans to revitalize the US nuclear arsenal, even as the US government pushes other countries to disarm.

SUSAN NAGEL: MARIE THERESE ~ In January, 1796, Marie-Therese, the only surviving child of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI arrived in Vienna in the care of her first cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, who had smuggled her out of France after the Reign of Terror. For three years Francis tried to convince Marie-Therese to assert her hereditary rights and allow him to invade the newly vulnerable democracy, but Marie-Therese refused, ultimately fleeing her cousin's Hofburg Palace for Mittau, where her exiled uncle, King Louis XVIII, married her off to his son.At Mittau, Marie-Therese wrote her memoirs, and, upon their publication, immediately became the enduring symbol of the Bourbon Restoration and a figure of fascination around the world. Yet for all of her fame Marie-Therese's later life remains shrouded in mystery. To this day, many believe that the real Marie-Therese, traumatized following her family's sudden execution, was spirited away to Eastern Europe, where she switched identities with a childhood playmate and lived out the rest of her life in seclusion as 'The Dark Countess'. Now, two hundred years later, this theory is finally put to rest.

SUE JENNER: THE PARENT/CHILD GAME ~ Bringing up children is one of the most difficult tasks in the world - and potentially one of the most rewarding. Loving and conveying love may seem to be instinctive skills, but they can also be worked on and improved, and it is now established that parenting is not necessarily an inherent talent, but is something that can be learned. Parents need no longer feel guilty, incompetent or useless when family relationships aren't what they should be - nor do children have to feel unloved, ignored or misunderstood. Good parenting skills, learned now, will be absorbed by the next generation, thus breaking the vicious cycle that can degenerate from toddler tantrums via teenage delinquency to adult crime and yet more unhappy families.In her work as a clinical psychologist with families from many cultures, Sue Jenner has experienced great success with the technique known to psychologists as the 'Parent/Child Game'. This is the first book to present this technique to a non-academic readership. The simple but incredibly effective principles of the 'Parent/Child Game' form the backbone of this guide, which is written with honesty, compassion and humour.

SUE JENNER: THE PARENT/BABY GAME ~ In her first book, Sue Jenner wrote that it is never too late to make positive progress with toddlers. In this new, comprehensive but easy-to-follow book, she explains why it is never too early to establish that all-important emotional bond between you and your baby. Sue shows new parents how to understand an infant's need for warmth, approval, security, and stimulation, and she describes how to translate love for your baby into a language he or she can recognise. "The Parent/Baby Game" uses the latest psychological theory and current research into children's neurological development. But Sue is more than aware, as a mother, stepmother and grandmother, that what we really need to know in moments of crisis is not a series of complex formulas, but simply what to do.So every chapter in this book gives practical solutions to all kinds of challenging situations - everything from birth fears, post-natal depression, strains on your relationship and coping with fatigue, to problems with sleeping, tantrums, crying, playing, feeding and disobedience.

ANITA JAIN: MARRYING ANITA ~ You are a single woman in your thirties, fed up with the singles scene. You are tired of singles dinner parties, and exhausted by phone calls, e-profiles, and forced dinner conversation. You fear you will never marry. What do you do? Anita Jain, a New York-based Indian-American journalist, is just such a woman. Even her parents despair of her and have logged her details on to an Indian dating internet site. For years she has trusted the Western way of finding a husband, but maybe there's something in arranged marriages after all. It certainly can't get any worse. So she's travelling to India in search of a perfect husband. "Marrying Anita" is a refreshingly honest look at the modern search for a mate set against the backdrop of a rapidly modernising New India. Will she find a suitable man? If so, will he please her nosy parents, aunts, uncles and cousins? Is the new urban Indian culture all that different from New York? And is any of this dating worth the effort?

MATT RUFF: BAD MONKEYS ~ Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. During questioning, she tells the police that she is a member of a secret organisation. Her division, the Bad Monkeys, is an execution squad, determined to rid the world of evil people. But the man she has just killed was not on the target list. As her story becomes more bizarre the question becomes: Is Jane lying, crazy - or playing a different game altogether?

LISA SEE: PEONY IN LOVE ~ Peony has neither seen nor spoken to any man other than her father, a wealthy Chinese nobleman. Nor has she ever ventured outside the cloistered women's quarters of the family villa. As her sixteenth birthday approaches, she finds herself betrothed to a man she does not know, but Peony has dreams of her own. Her father engages a theatrical troupe to perform scenes from "The Peony Pavilion", a Chinese epic opera, in their garden amidst the scent of ginger, green tea and jasmine. 'Unmarried girls should not be seen in public,' says Peony's mother, but her father allows the women to watch from behind a screen. Here, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man and is immediately bewitched. So begins her unforgettable journey of love, desire, sorrow and redemption.

MONICA PRADHAN: THE HINDI-BINDI CLUB ~ For decades they have remained close, sharing recipes and customs, and shaped by ancient ways. They are the Hindi-Bindi Club, a nickname given by their daughters to the mothers who left India to start anew daughters now facing struggles of their own. For Kiran, Preity and Rani, adulthood means balance, from the ways they tweak their mothers' cooking to rejecting their parents' beliefs. But will they have the courage of the Hindi-Bindi Club to hold on to their dreams - or create new ones?

DAVID KYNASTON: AUSTERITY BRITAIN - SMOKE IN THE VALLEY ~ David Kynaston's "Austerity Britain" 1945-51, the first book in his series "Tales of a New Jerusalem", was a major "Sunday Times" bestseller in 2007. Here is the second volume from this landmark book covering 1948-51. Continuing his groundbreaking series about post-war Britain, Kynaston presents a breathtaking portrait of our nation through eyewitness accounts, newspapers of the time and previously unpublished diaries. Drawing on the everyday experiences of people from all walks of life, "Smoke in the Valley" covers the length and breadth of the country to tell its story. This is an unsurpassed social history: intensely evocative to those who were there and eye-opening for their children and grandchildren.

DAVID CORDINGLY: COCHRANE THE DAUNTLESS ~ Patrick O' Brian, C.S. Forester and Captain Marryat all based their literary heroes on Thomas Cochrane, but Cochrane's exploits were far more daring and exciting than those of his fictional counterparts. He was a man of action, whose bold and impulsive nature meant he was often his own worst enemy. Writing with gripping narrative skill and drawing on his own travels and original research, Cordingly tells the rip-roaring story of a flawed Romantic hero who helped define his age.

MATTHEW BRZEZINSKI: RED MOON RISING ~ On 4 October 1957, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union secretly launched Sputnik, Earth's first artificial moon. Powered by a car battery, it passed over the stunned American continent once every 101 minutes and propelled the USSR from backward state to superpower and pioneer of the Space Age. This is the pulse-racing story of a time when two nations and ideologies were pitted against each other in a quest that laid the foundations of the modern technological world.

MARY HOFFMAN: STRAVAGANZE CITY OF SECRETS ~ Matt is dyslexic and extremely intelligent. When he is unexpectedly transported to the Scriptorium of Padavia (real-life Padua) University, he discovers he is a Stravagante who can travel through time using his talisman, a leather-bound book. Together with Luciano, now studying at the University, and Arianna, in disguise as a boy, he must fight the dangerous di Chimici clan who are on the verge of making a terrifying breakthrough into our world. This is a breathtaking and thrilling novel that will delight all Stravaganza fans.

Books Monthly (formerly Gateway Monthly) is published by Paul Edmund Norman on the first day of each month. You can contact me via e-mail at: editor@booksmonthly.co.uk. If you'd like to get a story published in Books Monthly just e-mail it to me and I'll consider it - no payment though, I'm afraid!