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Books: War! Hellish War!

Jim Maultsaid was a member of the Belfast-based pre-war Young Citizen Volunteers before he joined the 14th Royal Irish Rifles in 1914
Jim Maultsaid was a member of the Belfast-based pre-war Young Citizen Volunteers before he joined the 14th Royal Irish Rifles in 1914 Jim Maultsaid was a member of the Belfast-based pre-war Young Citizen Volunteers before he joined the 14th Royal Irish Rifles in 1914

War! Hellish War! Star Shell Reflections 1916-1918: The Illustrated Diaries of Jim Maultsaid (Vol II), published in hardback by Pen And Sword

ONE hundred years on, following a labour of love by grand-daughter Barbara McClune who typed up and edited the original hand-written bound journals, Jim Maultsaid's account of the First World War offers a genuine, and often humorous, insight into the thoughts of an ordinary soldier.

From a Donegal family, and a member of the Belfast-based pre-war Young Citizen Volunteers before joining the 14th Royal Irish Rifles in 1914, Maultsaid had longed to have his memoirs published during his lifetime and had prepared a preface in which he promised to give a "glimpse of the bright side" rather than the "filth and misery, the horrible sights, the pain and suffering of war".

In fact, despite the abundance of comic-strips and drawings, occasionally accompanied by jingoistic writing, at the core of this this book is a raw honesty from a man haunted by what he had saw and experienced.

Nowhere is this contrast more sharply illustrated than in his detailed account of the fighting on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, during which he describes personally killing several Germans, one a "mere boy".

Wounded in a captured German trench, he spent hours crawling back towards his own lines, over the mutilated corpses of friend and foe, until caught in the blast from an artillery shell that threw him into the air, crushing his body and spirit. Waiting to die, he heard moaning coming from nearby.

He recorded: "Was it a ghost? A trunk of a man, both legs gone, one arm gone, and the top of his head blown off: yet he speaks; I want to live again! I work my hand, my left hand, slowly round to my water bottle – I raise myself up, and place the nozzle of the bottle in the poor creature's mouth, a bottle that contained not a drop of any liquid. His teeth snapped through the top of the mouthpiece, like a rat-trap, and the trunk slides down. The spirit has gone. God above me! This is WAR! Even as I write a lump rises up in my throat, and I've held that bottle again, in my dreams."

Steven Moore

The Muse by Jessie Burton, published in hardback by Picador

IT'S no surprise that Jessie Burton's second novel is so anticipated – her first, The Miniaturist, became an international bestseller and was named Waterstones' Book of the Year 2014.

The author's latest work is just as ambitious and, like her debut, it's clear that a great deal of research has gone into creating this work of historical fiction.

A dual-time-frame novel, the action begins in 1967 with young Caribbean immigrant Odelle Bastien getting to grips with her new life in London. Initially working at a shoe shop, the aspiring writer gets a job at an art gallery. She becomes embroiled in the discovery of an artwork from the Spanish Civil War, and it's then that the reader is taken back in time to Spain, where the painting is being created.

The Muse is a taut thriller, combining art, politics and romance, as the reader slowly discovers the events surrounding the making of the work. Burton clearly has a way with words, crafting masterful, complex and atmospheric mysteries that keep the reader hooked until the end.

Alison Potter

Barkskins by Annie Proulx is published in hardback by Fourth Estate

ANNIE Proulx is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author best known for The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain. Barkskins took five years to write, and when you set eyes on this beast of a book, it's immediately apparent why.

At over 700 pages long, it's a daunting read. As a history graduate, Proulx has indulged her passion by detailing North American history from 1693 right up until 2013.

The story starts as Rene Sel and Charles Duquet arrive in New France (Canada) to chop trees for the odious and rather comical Monsieur Trepagny. The settlers struggle to tame the wild landscape, and their treatment of the Native Americans is shocking.

The rest of this epic novel follows the ancestors of this pair, and shows how humans have damaged the world's forests. Whilst Proulx's writing is clever and her research impressive, the many characters become confusing and it's hard to feel attached to them. Those interested in deforestation may love Barkskins, but most will find it more chore than treat.

Harriet Shephard