The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld (Weidenfeld &Nicolson, £7.99)
Denfield works with Death Row prisoners in real life, and her debut novel reflects her role, as a 'lady' visits a man called 'York' held in a stone fortress, condemned to death. The story is narrated by another unnamed prisoner, and this enigmatic device contributes to the anachronistic, almost fairy-tale feel of a most disturbing but humane tale.
Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat by Philip Limbery with Isabel Oakeshott (Bloomsbury, £9.99)
Limbery's study is both in-depth and broad-ranging as he argues against industrial farming and for more sustainable food production. There are some shocking revelations, like the fact that penicillin has been fed to food animals since the 1940s, which means they're now immune to a huge range of bugs. And we're eating them. Essential reading.
Leonora by Elena Poniatowska (Serpent's Tail, £12.99)
To tell the story of painter Leonora Carrington is almost impossible, given the many locations and famous people she experienced. How to convey the necessary depth and reality in a novel? Poniatowska gives us then a fictionalised biography, written with more care and respect than with real poetic feel perhaps, but illuminating nevertheless.
Censoring Queen Victoria: How Two Gentlemen Edited a Queen and Created an Icon by Yvonne M. Ward (OneWorld, £8.99)
As Victoria's daughter Beatrice busied herself burning her mother's journals after her death, two men, Viscount Esher and Arthur Benson, decided to try and preserve her letters. This account is as much about these Edwardian individuals, both homosexual and with their own secrets, as it is about Victoria's reputation. A fascinating history.
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