Book reviews: Reheated Cabbage | Shanghai Girls | Genesis | Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan: From Communism To Capitalism | The Case For God (What Religion Really Means)

Reheated Cabbage by Irvine Welsh is published by Jonathan Cape, priced £12.99.

The city's own Irvine Welsh, still probably best known for his incredible 1993 debut novel Trainspotting, is back with his fourth collection of short stories.

All the elements of Welsh's best work remain intact here: the brilliant imagination, the Scots dialect, the humour, the gritty realism and the frequent, intimidating threats of random violence.

He revisits familiar themes, environments and characters – Christmas dinner with Begbie, anyone? Chain-smoking aliens with local accents?

Seven of these eight tales were originally published in the 1990s in various magazines and anthologies, but the best of a very rewarding collection is undoubtedly the brand new novella, I Am Miami, in which superstar DJ Carl "N-Sign" Ewart and cohort Terry "Juice" Lawson come face-to-face with their arch-nemesis from their school days, teacher Albert "Blackie" Black, while wowing the crowds at an international clubbing event.

If it's been a while since you last picked up an Irvine Welsh book, now's the time to do it – he's currently working on Skagboys, a prequel to Trainspotting. 9/10 Review By Dean Haigh

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See is published by Bloomsbury, priced 11.99.

Boys may come and go, situations can change, but a sister's love will last forever. At least that's what Lisa See wants us to believe in her latest novel Shanghai Girls.

Born in 1930s Shanghai, at the height of a cultural movement sweeping the city, Pearl and May are two sisters from a bourgeois family. Insepar- able best friends, both are beautiful and modern. They live carefree lives until the horrifying day their father tells them that he has gambled away the family's wealth. To repay his debts, he must sell his two girls as wives to two "Gold Mountain" men – Americans.

The epic story moves from the shocking Battle of Shanghai against Japanese troops in 1937, to the Second World War and the late 1950s. It shows us the sisters' journey of a lifetime, as they attempt to escape their bombed city to the seemingly peaceful shores of Los Angeles.

Even then the battle doesn't stop as they struggle against racial discrimination and anti-Communist paranoia, and make sacrifices and choices as they strive to build the best life for Pearl's daughter, Joy.

Despite the rushed climactic end, Shanghai Girls will take you on a rollercoaster journey – that will make you laugh and cry. as you try to devour it in one sitting.

8/10 Review By Shereen Low

Genesis by Karin Slaughter is published by Century, priced 18.99.

From the first page, this is a book that grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck. And it doesn't let you go until the very last – so prepare yourself for a long night of reading!

Karin Slaughter is an accomplished and pacy writer, whose characters leap off the page.

Not for her the picture-perfect heroes and heroines. The trio of central characters in Genesis are flawed, a little flaky and completely true to life.

A crazed psychopath is kidnapping women and torturing them in the most horrible ways imaginable. Can Special Agents Will Trent and Faith Mitchell work out the connection between the seemingly randomly-chosen victims before he strikes again?

Switch off the mobile, cancel all appointments and expect to be drawn in and totally captivated by this deftly-plotted novel.

10/10 Review By Sandra Mangan

Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan: From Communism To Capitalism by Jonathan Aitken is published by Continuum, priced 20.

You probably know it best as Borat's birthplace – or in other words, a country where men prostitute their sisters and toothless citizens revel in their anti-Semitism.

But Kazakhstan, which became a nation as recently as 1991 and is larger than all of Western Europe put together, has survived a telling history of plunder, oppression and turbulence which the award-winning Jonathan Aitken, a former British MP, recounts with gusto.

His book details the rise of Kazakhstan's first, and to date, only president – Nursultan Nazarbayev – a nomad's son and steelworker turned Communist Party official, a position which realised connections with Boris Yeltsin and eventually led to the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Interviews with key figures such as Gorbachev add oomph to the story. But what's really fascinating is learning why Nazarbayev led his nation away from Soviet-induced communism to oil-based capitalism, turning it into the most commercially-successful nation in Central Asia to emerge from the Bloc.

9/10 Review by Kate Hodal

The Case For God (What Religion Really Means) by Karen Armstrong is published by Bodley Head, priced 20.

Religion and science may seem to be at war, but Karen Armstrong argues it was not always thus. In The Case For God she examines how the debate surrounding spirituality, belief and creation has shifted cataclysmically since our ancestors first considered what lies beyond the known.

Centuries of philosophical thinking on gods and the origin of humanity are digested, from early Greek thinkers to the monotheistic religions, through the Enlightenment and on to militant atheism and religious fundamentalism.

Topically, Armstrong also sheds light on how the embryonic forms of Christianity and Islam are vividly different from the doctrines and popular concepts today.

It's a voyage of philosophy, but doesn't really make a case for God. Intriguing, but those expecting a raft of convincing arguments in favour of a deity are destined to be disappointed.

6/10 Review by Claire Ennis