Paperbacks: The Good LifeWhat Was LostBeware of GodDeparture LoungeThe Boy Who Fell Out of the SkyBorn on a Blue DayA Night at the Majestic

The Good Life, by Jay McInerney (BLOOMSBURY £7.99 (354pp))

Since his 1984 debut, Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney has spent his writing career chronicling the misadventures of a generation of Manhattan party-goers. The Good Life, set in the immediate aftermath of 11 September, traces the impact of the unfolding tragedy on a set of jaded Park Avenue socialites and ageing hipsters. McInerney approaches his tricky subject matter by way of a love affair. A 42-year-old mother, Corrine Calloway - a character familiar from Brightness Falls (1992) - first meets Luke McGavock, a retired financier, at a soup kitchen near Ground Zero. The wealthy are as shell-shocked as anyone else in the city, and Corrine and Luke, both stuck in stale marriages, seek out new company and sexual solace. The Twin Towers may still be smouldering, but McInerney, an appreciative connoisseur of the ways of spoilt Manhattan, is at his best when satirising his fellow-citizens at play. After the initial impulse to flee (and swap "Alphabet City" for "Mount Kisco"), McInerney's New Yorkers soon pick up the pieces - attending publishing parties, planning Nantucket trysts and ordering take-outs from Pig Heaven. While it is not a "zeitgeist" work in the manner of Bright Lights, Big City, this flawed but entertaining novel recovers moments of real emotion from the rubble. EH

What Was Lost, by Catherine O'Flynn (TINDAL STREET PRESS £8.99 (242pp))

This smartly written debut combines an unsettling personal story with a long, hard look at modern urban life. O'Flynn tells the story of missing schoolgirl Kate Meaney - a child who disappears from a dismal shopping centre while playing "detectives" in its subterranean corridors. After 20 years, a young girl who resembles Kate is spotted on the shopping centre's CCTV. Partly a ghost story, partly a mystery, this tautly written novel captures both the charm and the ugliness of childhood. Inventive and humorous, O'Flynn saves her best lines for the more monstrous members of the retail trade. EH

Beware of God, by Shalom Auslander (PICADOR £7.99 (194pp))

In this irreverent debut short-story collection, Auslander takes the bull by the horns, making God the central character in every story. Placing an Old Testament deity in a 21st-century setting leads to all kinds of incongruities. In one story, a pious man discovers that God is a large talking chicken, and is forced to reconsider not only his life, but his relationship with chicken soup. In another, a 37-year-old "low-level assistant" deconstructs his copy of Kabbalah For Dummies. Reminiscent of Woody Allen's absurdist short stories, Auslander's stories draw on his orthodox Jewish upbringing to topple most authority figures - God included. EH

Departure Lounge, by Chad Taylor (VINTAGE £7.99 (218pp))

Mark Chamberlain is a middle-aged burglar who's searching for something he can't find. He has a house filled to the rafters with stolen goods, but is desperately seeking a woman: more precisely, Caroline May, a friend and classmate who went missing over 20 years ago. One cloudy night in Auckland, where this mystery noir takes place, Chamberlain breaks into an apartment and finds himself face-to-face with Caroline's photograph. Laconic, without being over-stylised, Taylor's novel manages to imbue New Zealand's scuzzier suburbs with a hint of urban cool. EH

The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky, by Ken Dornstein (SCEPTRE £7.99 (355pp))

When Ken Dornstein heard that his brother had been killed in the Lockerbie bombing, he finished his doughnut. It's one of many unflinchingly honest details in this absorbing memoir about an investigation and an obsession. David, killed when he was 25, was Ken's handsome older brother, the one who dreamt of writing the Great American Novel. For ten years after his death, Ken continued to feel "tangled up" in his brother's life and unable to commit to his own. This book is certainly writing as a kind of therapy, but it's also a touching portrayal of a family's love and loss. CP

Born on a Blue Day, by Daniel Tammet (HODDER £6.99 (284pp))

Daniel Tammet can perform astonishing mathematical feats in his head and learn a language from scratch in a week. He has exactly 45 grams of porridge for breakfast each morning and counts the item of clothing he wears before leaving the house. His extraordinary memoir is a fascinating, and moving, glimpse into the inner life of someone suffering from a syndrome that affects fewer than 50 people in the world. CP

A Night at the Majestic, by Richard Davenport-Hines (FABER £8.99 (358pp))

Proust makes bad writers worse, good ones better. Davenport-Hines belongs in the second camp. Six months before his death in 1922, the novelist attended a famous Paris dinner with Stravinsky, Joyce and Picasso. Yet this moving biographical sketch delivers not a Stoppard-like romp but a view of genius in the shadow of death, and the light of memory. The detail glitters; the emotion compels. As in Proust. BT

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