The Black Book
Sybil Oldfield
Profile, £25, 437pp
“My dear, the people that we should have been seen dead with!” Nöel Coward’s quip to Rebecca West was occasioned by his learning of the existence of the “black book”, a list drawn up by the Nazis of dissident Britons who would be eliminated in the event of a successful invasion. Sybil Oldfield’s thoroughly researched and fascinating historical biography explores the lives of many of the 2,600 citizens who attracted Hitler’s ire, ranging from high-profile entertainers and writers to those naturalised refugees who doggedly resisted the Nazis from afar.
Jeeves and the Leap of Faith
Ben Schott
Hutchinson, £18.99, 334pp
Ben Schott’s second Jeeves and Wooster book proves an enjoyable continuation of PG Wodehouse’s classic characters. Schott writes in a distinctive style that is somewhere between homage and postmodern response and his story – Bertie attempts to save the Drones Club from bankruptcy while continuing his haphazard work as a secret service freelancer – is more eventful and action-packed than Wodehouse would ever have countenanced. The laughs keep coming, the pivotal character of Iona McAuslan is far better drawn than any woman in the originals and it ends on a splendid cliffhanger.
Tender Is the Flesh
Agustina Bazterrica
Pushkin Press, £8.99, 221pp (paperback)
“If everyone was eating human meat, would you?” asks Agustina Bazterrica’s provocative and chilling novella. Set in a dystopian world where cannibalism has become legal, if disguised by the euphemism “special meat”, Bazterrica follows a factory owner, Marcos, whose business revolves around the production and supply of human flesh, even as his once-dormant conscience is awakened by an unexpected arrival in his slaughterhouse. Elegantly translated by Sarah Moses, this is bleak, sometimes sickening stuff, but there is no doubting the conviction with which Bazterrica presents this very contemporary parable.
To order The Black Book, Jeeves and the Leap of Faith or Tender Is the Flesh go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
