Books: Paperbacks

The Roy Strong Diaries 1967-1987 (Phoenix, pounds 8.99)

Anyone who picks up this distended volume hoping for a cultural equivalent to Alan Clark's naughty musings is in for a disappointment. Aside from a vainglorious account of the author's achievements at the V&A, most entries concern starchy get-togethers of the great and the good. Royalty plays a central role, with Princess Margaret getting the rough edge of Roy's tongue ("spoilt, idle and irritating") while the Queen Mum receives his undiluted admiration. The best humour is unconscious, as is his conceited account of receiving a knighthood: "I wonder whether it was different for Raleigh or Drake?"

Without a Hero by T Coraghessan Boyle (Granta, pounds 6.99)

Big game and small fry both feature prominently in Coraghessan Boyle's latest collection of short stories. In the book's opening story an angry realtor from Encino cools down by potting lions and gazelles on an all- American "safari" (located just outside Bakersville) while in "Hopes Rise" a yuppie couple gets turned on by a pond full of copulating toads. From the author of The Road to Wellville and The Tortilla Curtain, a deliciously warped take on the Americans at play.

A Concise History of English Christianity by David L Edwards (Fount, pounds 7.99)

Not the snappiest of titles, but this saga is packed with interest. We learn, for example, that the ecclesiastical freebie is nothing new. A party of three English bishops popped off for an expenses-paid conference in Rimini in 359. Edwards illuminates his narrative with telling points - he notes that the current similarity in the historic churches "would have amazed all generations between the 1550s and 1960s" - and deft use of poetry, from Vaughan's casual certainties ("I saw Eternity the other night") to the doubts of Tennyson: "I falter where I firmly trod". Edwards suggests that humility may mean "a good new beginning" for Christian England.

Absolutely Now! by Lynne Franks (Arrow, pounds 6.99)

Yes, Lynne Franks is absolutely bonkers. Even kookier (though not as funny) than her AbFab reincarnation would have you believe. In 1992, Britain's leading PR girl came to the startling realisation that money, material possessions and a large house in Maida Vale were not the answer - though crystals, Tantric sex and Californian hot tubs probably were. This wonderfully cringy account of a four-year spiritual journey to the inner Franks includes good times with dolphins, assorted 20-year-olds and a para-psychologist called Chuck Spezzano.

Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido (Penguin, pounds 6.99)

Reissued in a smart new cover to coincide with her forthcoming hardback, The Travelling Hornplayer, Trapido's first novel was adored by the critics ("A sort of bohemian Brideshead Revisited" opined the TLS) and awarded a Whitbread Special Prize for fiction. It tells the story of Katherine, a bright but buttoned-up student who is taken in by the intellectual Goldmans and initiated into the rituals of the thinking middle-classes: music, love and domestic chaos. Naturally, heartbreak occurs and Katherine repairs to Rome from where she is rescued, years later, by the same family. Polished, charming and very funny.

In Search of J D Salinger by Ian Hamilton (Bloomsbury, pounds 7.99)

When Salinger won a legal ban on Hamilton's biography of him, Hamilton instead produced this piquant account of writing the non-existent book. Though he uncovered most of the salient facts about the secretive novelist, Hamilton's sense of unease is palpable, especially when he finds himself in the same camp as the hustlers of Time magazine. The biographer finally admits how his "admired quarry" views him: "It's you I hate. You are a snooper and a thief." Considering this meditation on the craft of biography first appeared a decade ago, it is unfortunate that Hamilton does not update us on Salinger and the parallel case of Thomas Pynchon.

The Nine Secrets of Women Who Get What They Want by Kate White (Century, pounds 10)

How did Carolyn Bessette get to marry JFK Jr? How did Christie Brinkley get on the cover of Vogue? Not, according to Kate White, by sitting on their butts eating "sour cream and onion-flavoured chips". Her nine-step programme to landing the "big kahuna" (be it a husband, a baby or a new job) includes such dubious strategies as behaving like a hot tamale, and always "taking the last biscuit".