LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN - Colum McCann

Two things led to this book. The recommendation of one of my more sensible customers, and the fact that it had a link to an event that has long fascinated me - the tightrope walk between the (then almost constructed) towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, in August 1974. It was good that they did lead me there, for few books have ever held me so well in their grip [maybe Birdsong or Owen Meany] as this did.

It is a story of two brothers, of New York,  poverty drugs and prostitution, despair at the loss of a child in war, artistic excess, frustration at the state of society: told as a series of stories, they are loosely intertwined with the bizarre stunt of Philippe Petit's walk in the sky and a tragic accident. The setting of those great twin towers and their ultimate demise, never mentioned but always in our minds, is masterful. They are connected so delicately and with such great writing that it sometimes takes your breath away. One passage stands out - there is a wonderful description of the effect the glass walls of the new twin towers had on birds, who would constantly fly, confused, straight into them, and the lady who kept collecting their bodies. It took me straight back to that dreadful afternoon of Sept 11th, 2001 when the bodies falling from the glass towers were not birds.

The Corrigan brothers grow up in the rough end of Dublin, and although told largely from the viewpoint of Ciaran, it is really his brother John [forever to be known just as Corrigan] who is the real subject of much of the tale. Drawn from an early age to look after the drunks and vagrants of Dublin, and the demons who drive them there. He is destined for radical priesthood, settling in the Bronx of a failing and bankrupt New York. He provides shelter and comfort for the drug-addicted street prostitutes, regarded by the police as a pimp and by the pimps as a madman.

At the same time Claire is a grieving mother, living in luxury in the Upper East Side, distraught at the loss of her son in a pointless act in Vietnam; only finding solace in a self-help group of mothers in the same position. Her husband is a judge, driven to distraction by the hopeless justice system he has to keep working, and driven to work harder by his grief.   Blaine and Lara are wealthy artists, making and consuming the most of what New York's artist community has to offer. Tilly and her daughter Jazzlyn, herself with baby daughters, are hopeless heroin-addicted cheap hookers, forever hoping for a promised land but ever-destined never to see it.

Written with the balance and skill of  Petit's skywalk, the collision of their worlds is beautiful. If I have a criticism, it is that having swept us along for the first 250 pages, the final 100 do not quite reach the high standard he has set himself. The writing is as good, but many sections seem to have little purpose and to tell us thing that we do not need to know, the circle of life having already been completed. It could be a case of less being more - but do not be put off, it is as good as anything I have read all year.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BIKE by Rob Penn

Some unfortunate souls in Mayfield will have noticed that on occasion I make my journey to work from Broad Oak by bicycle. This combines the merits of environmentally friendliness, a degree of becoming less unfit and a source of humour for those catching the ever deepening beetroot colour of my face as I struggle up Fletching Street Hill. So even though only equipped with a '£25 off eBay' cycle - I was fascinated to come across Robert Penn's book - 'It's all about the Bike - The pursuit of happiness on two wheels'  [Particular Books; £16.99 ].

Rob achieved a degree of fame, or notoriety as one of those intrepid souls who set off to cycle around the world, in his case taking  three  years and about 40,00 kms. He still rides every day and has an array of cycles for various uses - but it was not enough. He wanted the perfect bike, for him. Not a lurid off-the-shelf carbon fibre monstrosity for five thousand pounds, but a custom built, bespoke model, using the finest of components and as individual as a Saville row suit.

In searching for the components he tells the mechanical and social history of the bicycle, from its seventeenth century origins, through the penny farthing to the shape we now are familiar with. He looks at its role in early twentieth century emancipation and giving access to the countryside to people who previously would have struggled to leave their parish. He also examines the impact of fashions and racing on cycling technology, the transformations in the west coast of America in the eighties, the rise of the mountain bike and development of cycling friendly cities like Portland, Oregon, and the changes that these have driven.

He starts off being measured for the frame by an artisan frame builder in Stoke-On-Trent (Rourkes), to Brooks of Smethwick for a leather saddle, he goes to Germany for tyres (Continental), to Italy for the gears and brakes (Campagnolo) and for handlebars and front forks (Cinelli), to the USA for headset bearings (Chris King)and wheels (Gravy rims and assembling with  British Royce hubs and Belgian spokes) and finally home for building. In each location he finds a wonderful history of each component and why it has developed to where it is and what is in the future. Nearly every manufacturer is almost obsessive with commercial secrecy; "you are the only outsider ever to allowed through this door, and no cameras" is an oft repeated refrain.

In the end he has spent a lot of money on a dream, the best there is. And has told us the great story of the bicycle in the process.