Paperbacks: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian<br/>How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life<br/>Metropolis<br/>Here Is Where We Meet<br/>Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew<br/>The Writer's Voice<br/>Uncut Confetti

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka (PENGUIN £7.99 (336pp))

Technology rather than ideology may have changed the face of Eastern Europe, but what really makes the world go round, according to debut novelist Marina Lewycka, are large breasts. Set in 1990s Peterborough, this robust comedy about a displaced Ukrainian family opens with an unexpected announcement: 84-year old widower, Nikolai Mayevska is to marry Valentina, a visa-less divorcée less than half his age. Grown-up daughters, Nadezhda and Vera, are appalled at the news of the impending union. New stepmother Valentina bursts into their lives like a vitriolic air freshener, forcing their father to sqaunder the family inheritance on leather upholstered cars and boil-in-the-bag cuisine. Overnight, Nikolai changes from a cultured émigré (and author of a soon-to-be-completed history of the tractor) into a lovelorn teenager. His daughters, who once sat through his lectures on the New Economic Plan, are suddenly privy to too much information about the state of their father's "squishy squashy". Interwoven with the knockabout comedy are flashbacks to the family's war-time past. This is a distinctive slice of family history which explores what happens when principles become luxuries you can no longer afford. EH

How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, by Kaavya Viswanathan (TIME WARNER £6.99 (314pp))

Opal Mehta, a New Jersey wunderkind, has been preparing for a place at Harvard since the age of six. The Dean of admissions eyes her impressive academic record, but makes it a condition of her acceptance that she takes time out to "get a life". Opal embarks on an enrichment programme that involves gyrating to Beyoncé's "Naughty Girl" video, wearing Jimmy Choos and kissing student council president Jeff Akel. A shockingly cheerful teen caper. EH

Metropolis, by Elizabeth Gaffney (ARROW £7.99 (474pp))

Set in a cityscape familiar from Scorsese's Gangs of New York, Elizabeth Gaffney's monumental epic unearths the more depressing realities of mid-19th-century immigrant life. Georg Geiermeier, a stonemason fresh off the boat from Hamburg, takes a job as a stable hand for P T Barnum's circus. Framed for an arson attack, he ends up being recruited by the Irish Whyos - a gang for "thieves, hookers and killers." His would-be girlfriend, "hot-corn" girl Beatrice, qualifies on at least two counts. Female gangsters and circus tigers roam the streets of a city that Gaffney would have us believe was every bit as untamed as the Wild West. EH

Here Is Where We Meet, by John Berger (BLOOMSBURY £7.99 (235pp))

Pottering around Lisbon, a man called John, the author's not-so-heavily disguised alter ego, bumps into his dead mother on a park bench. They stroll along the Rua Augusta, choose swordfish in the market and reminisce about long-ago days in Croydon. In what reads like a farewell tour, the writer continues his journey through some of Europe's lovelier cities, meeting up with other significant figures from his past, both the living and the dead. Berger's Frenchified prose can range from the sublime to the excruciating. Croydon probably explains a lot. EH

Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew, by Bernard Hare (SCEPTRE £7.99 (311pp))

A former social worker, Bernard Hare was living as a drug-fuelled drifter on a Leeds council estate when he met Urban, an illiterate 12-year old, and his friends, the "shed crew". "No one cares about us", 10-year-old Pixie tells him. "All the grown ups are out of it." Abandoned by their parents, abandoned by social services, abandoned by everyone, in fact, these children spend their time in a subhuman haze of sex, crack and violence. Hare's shockingly matter-of-fact depiction of an urban underbelly that's largely ignored is a hugely compelling read. What it lacks in literary finesse it makes up in raw power. CP

The Writer's Voice, by Al Alvarez (BLOOMSBURY £8.99(126pp))

"In order to write well" says Al Alvarez "you must first learn how to listen". This gem of a book, drawn from 50 years' experience as a writer and reader, is packed with insights culled from the masters. For Beckett, "writing style" is like "a bow tie about a throat cancer". For Virginia Woolf, it is "all rhythm". For Elmore Leonard, "if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." Essential reading for all writers - and all serious readers.CP

Uncut Confetti, by John Hegley (METHUEN £9.99 (85pp))

Luton's most famous son, and prophet of potatoes and glasses, is a genuine one-off. In performance, he can make you weep with laughter - but his deadpan ditties also work well on the page. They're funny, of course, but they're also touching and sweet. Hegley's poems are an engaging mix of the surreal, the mundane and the downright weird - all sprinkled with the gold-dust of his eccentric charm. CP