House of Trelawney
Hannah Rothschild
Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp368
Like Rothschild’s debut novel, The Improbability of Love, House of Trelawneywraps up a story of love and friendship in a gentle satire of entitlement. But where the former skewered the art world, Rothschild’s new book takes a prod at the aristocracy as the Trelawney family attempt to maintain their crumbling Cornish country pile and status. Though good fun – there’s a proper baddie for a beautiful teenager to take down – the title never elicits much sympathy for its upper-class caricatures.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Marlon James
Hamish Hamilton, £9.99, pp640 (paperback)
Described by James as an “African Game of Thrones”, this huge fantasy novel features maps, monsters and murders aplenty. Narrator/mercenary Tracker tries to hunt down a mysterious missing boy in a brutal, pre-colonial, mythical version of Africa, where rape and torture are de rigueur, resulting in a hard, almost nihilistic read. Still, James is inventive with his depictions of violence and it would make for a great TV series.
How to Argue With a Racist
Adam Rutherford
Orion, £12.99, pp224
Early in this vital book, geneticist, writer and broadcaster Rutherford argues that, as racism is now being openly expressed, it is our duty to contest it with facts, “especially if bigotry claims science as its ally”. And that’s exactly what he does, using science to debunk stereotypes and assumptions about skin colour, ancestral purity, sport and intelligence. His argument is that it’s not just genes that make us who we are. “We are a rich symphony of nature and nurture — of DNA and environment — stuff we are born with and stuff that happens to us.”
