New Leaf

* How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life And Deaths Of A Stand-Up Comedian, by Stewart Lee (Faber and Faber) £12.99 Back in the 1990s, Stewart Lee was the intellectual half of semi-successful comedy double act Lee and Herring, best known for his rational but arrogant straight man persona that contrasted, intentionally, with Richard Herring’s charming oaf.

These days, after a somewhat arduous journey of self discovery, he's mining a new strain of deadpan, almost lyrical, post-modern musings, delivered with razor-sharp intelligence and a melancholy world-weariness.

This, Lee’s first solo book since 2001’s acclaimed novel The Perfect Fool, is the story of his extraordinary rebirth as a comedian.

It follows his early retirement and his subsequent work on Jerry Springer: The Opera, and sees him return with a new understanding of, and a refreshing, edgier approach to, stand-up.

Consisting of transcripts of three shows, heavily annotated, Lee reveals his inspirations, his irritations and the sources of his material in a full and frank commentary on each.

It should also be noted that these excerpts are often as funny, thoughtful and challenging as the acts themselves.

While the critically acclaimed comic won't be playing any stadium tours anytime soon, Lee has a fanbase of discerning comedy lovers and he wants to keep it that way.

* Kehua!, by Fay Weldon (Corvus) £16.99 The latest novel from the best-selling author – perhaps best known for her early 1980s novel, The Life And Loves Of A She-Devil – is about Maori ghosts.

These spirits of the dead, known as Kehua, are forced to remain on Earth to haunt their relatives.

And when a young woman flees New Zealand, hoping to escape a past tainted by murder and suicide, the Kehua also make a journey to London.

In an interesting departure from the novelist’s usual style, Fay Weldon intersperses fictional prose with autobiographical commentary about how she has personally been affected by the Kehua, as she writes from the basement of an old house.

She explains that these ghosts make themselves known in a variety of ways by offering murmured advice to generations of women throughout the ages.

Although this approach can be a little confusing, it does transform the story into more than a simple ghost story.

The Long Glasgow Kiss, by Craig Russell (Quercus, £12.99) Juggling loyalties between three crime lords can be daunting work – but for wisecracking private investigator Scots-Canadian Lennox, it’s all part of the job.

Craig Russell’s likeable lowlife returns for another instalment of post-war skulduggery, this time involving the death of a local bookmaker.

Set in 1950s Glasgow, Lennox is employed by one of the city’s kingpins to protect certain interests while, at the same time, locating the brother of a glamorous songstress.

When the corpses and fist fights begin to mount up, Lennox soon finds himself frantically scouring the humid Glaswegian districts to earn his fee and settle his conscience.

The fast-paced plot has a film noir quality, but is formulaic at times.

Glasgow’s murkiness and history are a constant folly for the protagonist who pines for Canada when whisky and eponymous headbutts make his brain ache.

Sadly, the final chapters slacken and the narrative is slightly limp when tying up all the loose ends of the thriller.

* A Cabinet Of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales And Surprising Facts From The World's Greatest Empire, by JC McKeown (Oxford University Press) £10.99 The filth, barbarity and splendour of ancient Rome, as described by contemporary writers, are vividly summoned up in this entertaining book.

American classics professor JC McKeown has used excerpts from Greek and Roman authors to create a fascinating social history which should appeal to a wide readership.

The book’s 23 chapters cover virtually every aspect of life in Rome, including family, women, medicine, slaves, food and drink, buildings, gladiatorial-type spectacles and, inevitably, decadence.

Most people were poor and lived in small, squalid apartments. Bath houses and toilets were public in every sense of the word, except for the very rich who had their own facilities, but there was an abundance of water because of the superb aqueducts.

There are some uncomfortable parallels between life in ancient Rome and the West today. Many wealthy Romans became increasingly gluttonous and so dependent on being carried around in a litter that walking became for them an odd experience.