Paperbacks Reviewed by Emma Hagestadt and Christopher Hirst

Blood on the Tracks by Miles Bredin (Picador, pounds 6.99).

A young reporter's gung-ho, rather shapeless account of an intermittent rail journey between Angola and Mozambique in 1992. With less than half the 2,760-mile line operational, he doesn't board a train until page 129. After a terrifying brush with the Angolan civil war, Bredin is graphic on Africa's endemic corruption, inflation and decay. Some may find his puppyish enthusiasm tiresome.

De Valera by Tim Pat Coogan (Arrow, pounds 9.99)

Chatty and outspoken, Coogan has conjured a lively read from the distant figure who dominated Ireland for much of this century. Though De Valera was vilified in Britain for insisting on Irish neutrality, Coogan notes that he shackled the IRA during the war. In the post-war world, "Dev" emerges as economically inept and a cultural isolationist. Coogan's verdict: "He did little useful and much harmful."

The Book of Sodom by Paul Hallam (Verso, pounds 10.95)

There's no shortage of literature about the "city of the plain" (whence our swear-word "sod"). Hallam's quirky anthology ranges from Proust to porn. His introduction - part autobiography, part a history of gay London - could happily be expanded to book length. The cover-pic of a naked man having a fag lit for him was taken in that gay bastion - the Newcastle United changing-room in 1938.

The Literary Companion to Cats ed. Clare Boylan (Sinclair-Stevenson, pounds 9.99)

Clare Boylan isn't sentimental. Once, finding a note from the cleaner - "Cat is in the bin" - she promptly interred the creature, along with a fluffy bag of hoover emptyings, in the garden. A wonderfully skittish collection of feline literature, including Barbara Pym on cat fleas, Dora Carrington on cat lust and Boylan's personal favouite - Francis Scarfe's poem "Old Cat".

Harvest by Celia Brayfield (Viking, pounds 9.99)

Jane Knight, author of bestselling cookery books, has arranged a birthday party for her husband at their Gascon farmhouse. Among the guests are her husband's ex-lover (the beautiful but infertile Grace), his daughter (the beautiful, but pregnant Imogen) and Grace's husband Nick (specialist in HIV-positive babies). A fragrant blockbuster which, the author darkly hints, has been inspired by "true-life" events.

Brando by Peter Manson (Orion, pounds 8.99)

A big book about a big man. Peter Manson subpoena-ed over 700 witnesses for his biography of Marlon Brando, all willing to testify to the star's prodigious appetite for women and self-loathing. Most interesting are Manson's takes on Brando's goings-on in Tahiti which eventually led to the murder of Brando's daughter's fiancee by Brando's son. A sad account of a vastly talented man.