BOOKS / Recommended

The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, tr. Frank Palmos, Secker, pounds 8.99. Winner of this year's pounds 10,000 Independent Foreign Fiction Award; by a former soldier in the North Vietnamese army.

One Art: Selected Letters of Elizabeth Bishop ed. Robert Giroux, Chatto, pounds 25. A moving selection of letters by one of America's finest poets. Review by Jamie McKendrick, 30 April.

The Bridge over the Drina by Ivo Andric, tr. Lovett F Edwards, Harvill pounds 8.99. A genuine modern classic: four centuries in the life of a bridge near Sarajevo. Review by Hugo Barnacle, 16 April.

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Allen Lane, pounds 20. Learned and witty analysis of the human urge to talk and write. Review by Robert Winder, 15 April.

Innocents in Africa by Drury Pifer, Granta, pounds 15.99. Warm evocation of racial bitterness in a 1930s South African childhood. Review by Doris Lessing, 7 May.

Romans by Michael Sheridan, Weidenfeld, pounds 18.99. City life by this paper's former Rome correspondent. Not reviewed here, but hailed elsewhere as 'vivid . . . elegant . . . witty'.