Books

Readers’ corner

Eliese Colette Goldbach joins a rich vein of writers trying to understand the disparity of the United States. In Rust, Goldbach returns to her native Cleveland after being sexually assaulted and finds solace and comradery in the steel mill, a symbol of a world she had wanted to leave while growing up.

Hydra (pictured above ) in 1960 forms the bohemian backdrop for Polly Samson’s novel A Theatre for Dreamers. The Greek island is home to a dazzling array of poets and writers (including a young Canadian called Leonard Cohen) whose lives entwine in the scorching summer heat. Into the fray arrives a teenager who sits on the periphery and watches as the paradise unravels.

The smash-hit Netflix series Unorthodox means that Deborah Feldman’s memoir, upon which the series is based, is likely to be one of the most popular books of the year. Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots is the story of how Feldman left the insular Satmar community in Williamsburg, New York. It offers an incredible insight into a world few of us know much about.

Frédéric Beigbeder, the French provocateur, embraces the idea of immortality in A Life Without End, which has been recently been translated from French. The fictional story sees the novelist’s alter-ego head out on a world tour in search of lengthening his life. On his mission he meets real-life heroes of the long-living, including genome tampering Andre Choulika. A fun read for the ageing wild child.

This beautifully crafted book features the photographs of Jacques Henri Lartigue, who in 1963 sent his life’s work to MoMA and was given an exhibition on the spot. Lartigue was given a camera when he was just seven years old – and went on to document the Belle Époque, that period in French history between the Franco-Prussian War and World War One. The photographs in The Boy and the Belle Époque show a long forgotten world through a child’s eyes.