Books: Paperbacks

Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams by Lyle Leverich (Sceptre, pounds 8.99) Describing his subject as "the most enigmatic personality I have ever encountered", Leverich tells the story up to 1945 when Tom Williams experienced what he termed "the catastrophe of success" with The Glass Menagerie and changed his name. Every page contains a rich lode of fascinating material, especially concerning his Dickensian family: a cold, miserly father, a doting, prudish mother and a schizophrenic sister whose lobotomy is the most painful section of the book.

Thinking of England by Kitty Churchill (Abacus, pounds 6.99) A game sort of gal, Miss Kitty has produced a Which-style guide to the kinky foibles of England's unbuttoned suburbs. Lugging along her (literally) long-suffering husband Dominic and gay pal Ben, she assiduously seeks out 57 varieties of bondage, fetishism and dressing-up. The result is more peculiar than arousing, rather like an account of native ceremonies in New Guinea. It is also most amusing but you can tell that Kitty's heart isn't really in it: "In six months, I amassed a grand total of two orgasms related to research."

A Pacifist's War by Frances Partridge (Phoenix, pounds 6.99) The customary astringent wit of Partridge's diary is only intermittently displayed in this dark, brooding volume. At the heart of the book is a vicious row with fellow Bloomsburyite Gerald Brenan about the Partridges' pacifism (Ralph P fought bravely in World War I). Some lighter entries might have come from Alan Bennett's Forty Years On: "During an appalling raid, Hester heard two voices discussing German airmen: 'They say they're heavily made- up, you know, red nails, lipstick.' CRASH. BOOM. BANG!"

Sir Phoebus's Ma by Zoe Teale (Phoenix, pounds 5.99) Pleasingly unpretentious autobiographical first novel about a 22-year-old London girl who spends a year teaching English at a high school in Japan. As well as the expected culture shock, the heroine has to deal with the unwanted attentions of Mr Moriya, her greasy middle-aged department head. She spends much of the novel trying to figure out what she means to him: substitute daughter, romantic attachment or the personification of Englishness - in the end, facing up to the realisation that she is as fixated on him as he is on her.

The Private Parts of Women by Lesley Glaister (Bloomsbury, pounds 5.99) Sex and secrets dominate this macabre exploration of female identity. In a fit of self-loathing following an abortion, Inis runs away from her husband and children and ends up living in a dreary Sheffield street. Her next door neighbour is Trixie, an octogenarian Bible-basher suffering from multiple-personality disorder. The style is stream-of-consciousness, but the plot remains tight enough to give this horror story the sustained momentum of a thriller.

Asking Questions: an anthology of encounters with Naim Attallah (Quartet, pounds 12.50) These are shrewdly conducted question-and-answer sessions, which read like conversations not interrogations. Of the 25 interviews, Lord Dacre confesses to snobbery, Ernst Gombrich hints sadly at emptiness in his personal life, and Quentin Crisp, after a lifetime of unfulfilment, reveals his disillusion with sexual intercourse (''often actually painful, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes nasty'').