Paperbacks reviewed by William Leith

Solo by William Boyd (Vintage, £7.99)

William Boyd tells stories very smoothly and has a talent for pushing his characters into big adventures. He was born in the 1950s, knows a lot about the third world, is not uncomfortable around guns and handles sex scenes with brisk efficiency. So he’s an ideal writer of James Bond novels, and this one, his first, is very good. Boyd’s Bond is very like Fleming’s Bond. He smokes a bit less, perhaps, but craves tobacco a bit more. He is, I think, five per cent nicer. He lives for the moment but we sense an awareness of inner demons. There is the lust, the drink, the shred of decency. Impressive.

100 Days To Victory by Saul David (Hodder, £9.99)

If you’re an ordinary person and you want to read one modern book on the First World War, this might well be it. Saul David has divided the war into 100 crucial days — and given us 100 well-told stories. We see the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie as they are driven around Sarajevo on June 28 1914. A teenage terrorist threw a bomb, which bounced off the roof of the Archduke’s car. “The fellow must be insane, let us proceed with our programme,” says the Archduke, unaware of a second young terrorist lying in wait down the road — and, of course, of the greater insanities to come, recounted here with great skill.

Letters To A Young Scientist by Edward O Wilson (Liveright, £8.99)

Edward O Wilson, a world expert on ants, is a Harvard professor in his eighties, and this book, a sort of memoir, makes you want to be a scientist. “Science,” he tells us, “is the wellspring of modern civilisation.” When Wilson was 14 he was asked to be a “nature counselor” at a summer camp. Later, at university, he wanted to study flies but had to make do with ants — a lucky break, he says, because very few people knew much about them. To be a good scientist, he says, you don’t have to be a genius — imagination and persistence are the best qualities. His own IQ, he says, is 123.