On the shelves

Published on Friday 3 October 2008 18:16

Also published this week...

Non-fiction

The House Of Wittgenstein

Alexander Waugh, Bloomsbury, 20

You may know of the philosopher Ludwig, and the one-armed pianist Paul (for whom Ravel and Britten composed) – but the rest of the family is just as eccentric. This is a fantastic and ingenious group biography.

It's All Greek To Me

Charlotte Higgins, Short Books, 12.99

Following on from her book on Latin and passion (not usually yoked together), Higgins takes on classical Greek, covering politics, barbarians, love, epic and ethics, all done with panache and sly wit.

A Time To Dance, A Time To Die

John Waller, Icon, 12.99

In 1518, a plague hit Strasbourg and its victims succumbed to an irresistible urge to dance – even to death. In compelling fashion, Waller investigates what caused this bizarre epidemic, and what the victims thought was happening.

Fiction

The Beacon

Susan Hill, Chatto & Windus, 10

A brilliantly eerie little tale from the author of The Woman In Black, with a very adroitly handled contemporary theme: the misery memoir. When one brother "reveals" his childhood horrors, the lies might hide a darker truth.

Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister

Gregory Maguire, Headline Review, 7.99

Instead of the Oz backdrop that informed his musical-spawning novels Wicked and Son Of A Witch, Maguire turns to Cinderella, and the untold story of the stepsisters.

The Independence Of Miss Mary Bennet

Colleen McCullough, HarperCollins, 18.99

Pride And Prejudice gets the Thorn Birds treatment in another "sequel" to an Austen work. Twenty years later, Mary Bennet decides to do something about England's poor, with needlessly melodramatic results.