Books

JOHN CALLOW follows Fidel Castro from the mountains of the Sierra Maestra to his retirement last week as Cuban president.

JOHN GREEN believes that Robert Peston's book is a call to action against a system that allows the rich to grow ever more richer.

BETTESHANGER in Kent was the first deep coal mine that I ever went down. It was back in the 1960s and I was a guest of Communist Party members in the NUM branch there.

THE second novel from Willy Vlautin continues to explore the themes started in his debut The Motel Life.

THIS is a wonderful, terrible and inspiring book. The only wonder is that it has taken so long to find its way into an English translation from the GDR, where it was published in 1971.

FRENCH Author Bernard du Boucheron won a French Academy award for this book. But it is only minimally more stimulating than counting sheep.

MICHAL BONCZA reads Peter Hallward's edge-of-the-seat expose of the shocking history of colonialism, tyranny and rebellion in Haiti.

WITH Joe Sacco's Palestine and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, the graphic novel has become one of the most accessible mediums for gaining an understanding of the Middle East today.

THIS difficult and at times over-complicated novel is one of the strangest books that I've ever read, but it's definitely one worth persevering with.

THE Selfish Capitalist blends elements of psychology, cultural studies and sociology with political-economic ideas to successfully illustrate the difference between what the author terms the selfish capitalism of Britain and the US and the unselfish capitalism of western Europe and Japan.