Paperbacks reviewed by William Leith

The Last Word by Hanif Kureishi (Faber, £8.99)

Harry Johnson is a young writer who wants to kick-start his career. He accepts an offer to write the biography of Mamoon Azam, an ageing Anglo-Indian novelist. For Harry, it’s make-or-break. Azam also needs a career boost. He’s over the hill. He’s slipping. He needs the money. A biography might be the perfect remedy — it might raise his profile and sell some of his books. Both men, then, are desperate for this book to happen. But, you feel, there can only be one winner. Harry needs dirt. He wants details about sex and cruelty. Mamoon’s wife, Liana (great name), wants Harry to turn him into “a brand”. The stage is set and Kureishi delivers beautifully.

The Game of Our Lives by David Goldblatt (Penguin, £9.99)

Thirty years ago English football was not well. Crowds were down. There was violence and racism. The stadia were crumbling. It wasn’t the sport we have now. But what do we have? David Goldblatt examines it peerlessly. He’s a historian and an economist. Football is now more popular than ever in its history. It has crossed class barriers. Politicians talk about it. Maybe it’s a sort of religion: “It has something of the church about it.” Every week about a million people go to church, and about 750,000 go to football matches — “no one in church is catching the highlights later, though”. A superb history of a sport and of a nation.

The Unexpected Professor by John Carey (Faber, £9.99)

John Carey, a grammar-school boy from Barnes, lived through the Second World War as a child and then spent his life studying literature in Oxford. This is his account. It’s calm, measured and slightly addictive. He tells us about London before and during the war and re-creates his whole childhood world. Then he discovered books. The discovery never stopped. Carey tells us about reading, and it’s terrific. He loves poetry. He gives us the best quick guide to Wordsworth I’ve read. He tells us about dead poets, and also poets he met — Auden, Graves, Larkin. He will send you to their books.