Volodymyr Zelensky publishes series of war speeches

*A Message From Ukraine by Volodymyr Zelensky

This short book was always going to be remarkable, if not for its content then at least for its context. Just a year ago, its author was relatively unknown on the global stage, a small footnote to Donald Trump’s “do us a favour” scandal.

Now, the Ukrainian President is a hero to many in the world’s democracies.

It’s a fame he did not seek, and this is a book he says he wishes was never published. A collection of Zelensky’s speeches, it tells the story of Ukraine in a fateful year – at times forcing the reader to put down their copy and remember the pictures and news reports they saw at the time, and sparking moments of reckoning with the grim reality of the largest war in Europe for decades in Ukraine will now continue through a tough winter – and the book can help, with the president’s proceeds of the sales going to help his country. The nation’s future still rests on Zelensky’s prediction and rallying cry: “We used to say ‘peace’. Now we say ‘victory’.”

*Age Of Vice by Deepti Kapoor is published in hardback by Fleet, priced £20 (ebook £9.99).

Age Of Vice is epic in all senses of the word – it’s long (clocking in at nearly 600 pages), spans different continents, and tells the stories of people living in extreme poverty as well as the super-rich.

It begins in Noughties Delhi with a deadly car crash – a rich man’s car does the damage, but it’s lowly servant Ajay who takes the blame. Kapoor expertly weaves together the tales of various characters, focusing on Ajay – born into poverty and sold as a young boy, he soon works for the wealthy Sunny in Delhi before going to prison; Sunny, the swaggering son of a gangster who can’t quite figure out his place in life; and Neda, a young journalist who falls for Sunny. It paints a picture of greed, crime, violence and corruption in India, building to a towering crescendo.

The ending doesn’t feel entirely satisfying, but it’s still a captivating crime caper.