The Town
Shaun Prescott
Faber & Faber, £12.99, pp256
The disappearance of towns across New South Wales is the subject of Shaun Prescott’s debut novel, which uses classic tropes of the existentialist novel (too self-consciously at times) to draw our minds to globalisation and the breakdown of community life. Characters speak with artful banality, while realism is mixed with absurdist elements: a hotel without guests, a train that doesn’t go anywhere, a bus without passengers. In its best moments, it conjures a remote, inward-facing landscape that carries disaffection, loneliness and darker forces beneath.
Notting Hill: A Walking Guide
Julian Mash
Notting Hill Editions, £13.50, pp157
“It is not just about what you see when you walk, but who you will meet,” says Julian Mash in his guidebook-cum-cultural history, advocating the Dickensian tradition of observing and interacting. The west London district has been associated with carnival, the eponymous romcom and swanky residents. Mash does not deny these aspects but attempts to broaden this narrow mythology and show W11 warts and all, taking us on four main walks: around the market, the carnival route, the area’s culture and its buildings (from the smartest to former slums), with a brief postscript on Grenfell. A cute, smartly packaged book with annotated maps and a full, tourist-friendly Japanese translation.
A Short History of Drunkenness
Mark Forsyth
Penguin, £8.99, pp243
This whistlestop history begins with ancient mythology around the most seductive of liquid substances; the Egyptians thought beer had saved humanity, while the Greeks preferred wine. The former associated excess booze with sex, the latter to madness, while the ancient Chinese thought it downright dangerous. Mark Forsyth grapples with various bans too, from the Qur’anic edict to American prohibition and Tsar Nicholas II’s outlawing of vodka in 1914 (the Bolshevik overthrow, four years later, might not have been unrelated, he adds, in all seriousness). A breezy, entertaining world tour of inebriation, though it’s a shame Forsyth doesn’t dwell on the very British ritual of the office party.
• To order The Town for £10.99, Notting Hill: A Walking Guide for £11.48, or A Short History of Drunkenness for £7.64 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
