WHO COOKED ADAM SMITH’S DINNER?

Katrine Marçal (Portobello, £8.99)

It’s self-interest that makes the world go round, or so economists have insisted for 200 years. But it depends how you work it out. The experts, somewhat predictably, failed to take account of the unpaid labour done by women every day all over the world. From that observation, Katrine Marçal launches her critique of orthodox economics, noting that Adam Smith’s theories were forged in the Newtonian age, when the Universe was seen to function like a clockwork machine, and haven’t been significantly overhauled since. She highlights the way economists have simplified human beings to caricatures which can only relate to each other as competitors, or to objects outside themselves as commodities, and the desperate attempts made by post-War economists to try to back up their male-centric stance with biology. Inevitably, she herself makes simplifications, but this is nevertheless a highly effective counterblast, shining light on a profession in which decisions can be, technically speaking, “rational” and at the same time barking mad.

SO YOU’VE BEEN SHAMED

Jon Ronson (Picador, £8.99)

Social media has done much to level the playing field and put power into the hands of the people. If politicians and the media aren’t interested, Twitter users can draw attention to an issue and often extract an apology and repentance. But The Men Who Stare At Goats author Jon Ronson has seen its ugly side: the return of public shaming “after a lull of 180 years”. He meets people who have been shamed, lost their jobs, become pariahs and found themselves on mainstream news, sometimes for nothing worse than an ill-judged joke. His main concern is the paradox of Twitterstorms, that people are allowing their worst bullying instincts to come out under the guise of compassion and fairness. Like the best of Ronson’s work, it’s both fascinating and frightening enough to give readers serious reservations about where we’re heading, and it includes an extra chapter about the circumstances of the author’s own “mini-shaming”, which seemed to confirm everything he’d suspected.

NOBODY IS EVER MISSING

Catherine Lacey (Granta, £7.99)

It’s not just a divorce Elyria wants, but an escape from her whole life. So, without telling her husband, she books a flight to New Zealand on the basis of a casual invitation, and once there drifts from place to place, passing through other people’s stories. Don’t expect to find much of New Zealand’s local colour here, though, as this book really takes place in Elyria’s interior landscape. On the surface, not much may be happening but underneath a battle is raging, because what really troubles Elyria is not her relationship with her husband or her tiresome Manhattan existence writing soap operas, but the darkness inside her. Her battle with the “wildebeest” is what has kept her shut off from other people, and it moves to a new level when she cuts herself off from her familiar life. This is an extraordinary debut from Lacey, a beautifully written and psychologically intense novel that doesn’t settle for an easy resolution.

FEAST OF THE INNOCENTS

Evelio Rosero (Maclehose Press, £9.99)

Translated from Spanish, Feast Of The Innocents takes place in 1968 in the Colombian town of Pasto, where gynaecologist Justo Pastor Proceso López is as popular among his patients as he is despised by his wife and daughter. Dr López is obsessed with Simón Bolivar, the greatest of South American heroes, furious that the legend surrounding the man obscures a host of atrocities. It’s his ambition to expose the sham, and the forthcoming Feast Day of the Holy Innocents will give him the opportunity to do just that. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the fact that the people of Colombia aren’t quite ready to hear the unvarnished truth about their idol yet. But this project has rejuvenated the doctor, and he’ll go through with it even if he has to pay the ultimate price. Equally tragic and absurd, this tale of obsession is bold, colourful and mercurial, slipping into an even more febrile, hallucinatory mood during the carnival itself.

ALASTAIR MABBOTT