Paperbacks reviewed by William Leith

Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas (Atlantic, £7.99)

In The Slap, the Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas showed us how life can turn on a moment of violence. Here, he does it again. I could feel it coming from a long way off. Danny Kelly, an Aussie kid, gets a swimming scholarship to a posh school. But he’s taunted and bullied by the richer boys, who also bully his only proper friend, a half-Asian kid. You can feel Danny’s seething rage. He head-butts one of the bullies. Meanwhile, he swims. He’s desperate to be a top swimmer. When something goes wrong, all his anger comes home to roost. He lashes out. Horribly. Like The Slap, full of conflict. And compelling.

Ammonites & Leaping Fish by Penelope Lively (Penguin, £9.99)

When does old age begin? In this elegant essay, Penelope Lively points out that, in a survey, “most” people think old age starts at 59, whereas octogenarians put the number at 68. For Lively, it’s 70. Here, she tells us what it feels like, for her at least, to be old. She covers a lot of ground at a clipped pace; her prose, as always, is sprightly. She’s happy not to travel because she has her memories. She’s very good on memory in general. There is the physical decline. But something else “has crept up” — “acceptance”. I loved her discussion of changing attitudes, too. How different sex was before the Pill. It’s thoughtful and inspiring.