The Culchie's Guide to Dublin by Jim Connolly, Mercier Books €10 128pps

SO WAT'S da bleedin' story, Rory? Dis bleedin' buke wat yer man wrote... Alright, alright, settle down now, it isn't all that bad. The concept is original, yes, but the delivery fails to steer clear of stereotyping. Thus we get a celebration of marathon binges, Temple Bar is "a happening place", where to get the best pint of Guinness etc,

That said, there is a useful guide of places for rural folks to avoid. Places where piebald ponies roam at will, where amazing clutters of houses have been wedged into minute spaces, places where the windows of shops remain metal-shuttered, places where you are most likely to be murdered.

These are categorised like movie certs: Dalkey is U, Blanchardstown is 18, Rathmines is 12, bleedin' Kewlock is 18, sorry 'bout that, Coolock.

Rock stars are generally born on the Northside but gravitate (graduate?) to Dalkey, an A-list area.

Jackeens, dyed-in-the-wool Dubs, are so-called because they waved the Union Jack whenever British royalty visited the city.

Culchies, on the other hand, are muck savages, and are so-called because lots of 'em come from Mayo and Coiltemach (Kiltimagh), which "translates roughly" as "Out in the Woods". And that is a very rough translation.

Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S Thompson by William McKeen, Aurum £10stg 448pps

THOMPSON was certifiable by any standards. That reference in the title refers to his love of guns, and nostalgia for the Old West. The nearest he got to the lawless west was his feature essay on riding with the Hells Angels in 1965, his first big splash. The success was instant. No one had heard of Thompson before. Now he had a 'wild man' reputation to live up to. He became a celebrity. Worse, a self-regarding celebrity. He wrote his last great piece, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, six years after the Hells Angels piece, and that was it. The turning point in his career was when he committed the ultimate no-no in journalism – failing to deliver copy. He was asked to cover the 1975 evacuation of Saigon, but spent the money instead on drugs, booze and ladies of easy virtue. He died at 68 and no one knows how he lasted that long.

Memoirs of a Geezer: Music, Mayhem and Life by Jah Wobble, Serpents Tail £13stg 340pps

AWFUL price for a paperback, but this one is worth it. John Wardle got the name Jah Wobble when Sid Vicious drunkenly introduced him as such after a five-day bender. He was a dynamic bass player. Played with the John Lydon post-punk Sex Pistols group, Public Image Limited, and I have to admit that he writes as well as he plays. He writes entertainingly about his childhood in the East End and gives an insider's account of the birth and necessity of punk, drinking very early in the day, alcoholism, a frank account of the split with his missus, getting a job on the London Underground where he announced to passengers: "I used to be somebody. I repeat, I used to be somebody." And how he cleaned up his life and became somebody again. Uplifting, but he luxuriates in a hugely inverted class snobbishness.

The Act of Love by Howard Jacobson, Vintage £8stg 310pps

IN HIS novel of ideas, Jacobson comes up with a strange one: "All husbands secretly want their wives to be unfaithful..." His protagonist, Felix Quinn, is definitely a masochist. He is well-read, an antiquarian bookseller, aesthete, but a little wonky in the mind, which he targets by manipulating his wife to have affairs. Thus does he satisfy his desire for unhappiness by imagining her in the embraces of another man. Oh, I don't know. To further add to his self-lacerations, he ponders whether she is going along with him in order to fulfil his peculiar desires, or is she unfaithful because she's no longer in love with him. Again he asks himself: "Nor is love the desire to lose, but the desire to live in fear of possible loss." He thinks a lot, has some profound ideas, but has he given any thought to the consequences of his manipulations?

The Assassin's Song by MG Jassanji, Canongate £8stg 314pps

RELIGIOUS intolerance runs through Jassanji's novel like the virus it is. Central to this tale is the history of Muslims in India where an acrid atmosphere exists between them and Hindus. If memory serves me, it was around this time last year that major riots took place. The narrator here is Karsan, whose father is the saheb of Pirbaag, or keeper of an ancient Muslim sufi shrine. Karsan will take on the same role when his father dies, but all he wants to do is play cricket. The toxic hatred between Muslim and Hindu which festers here is not the general religious nonsense of "my God is better than your God". The beliefs held by both religious parties here are extremely similar, as far as I can make out. Karsan leaves India, has existential torments and returns to do his father's and his God's bidding. Beautifully written, but laborious for the general reader.