Prison grub

Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett
Jennifer Gonnerman

Granta £8.99, pp356

In 1984, 26-year-old Elaine Bartlett was arrested for selling cocaine. Despite the fact that it was her first offence, and there was more than a little suspicion of entrapment, she was sentenced to 20 years to life under New York's hard-line drug laws introduced by its then governor, Nelson F Rockefeller.

Released on parole 16 years later, Elaine found her freedom to be in many ways to be even harder than imprisonment.

Unemployed and with her four children now problematic young adults, her attempt to keep her family intact makes harrowing but gripping reading.

Gonnerman shows how hard it is to escape from the cycle of crime, drugs and poverty, and how easily the road smash of one person's life can be perpetuated from one generation to the next.

Eating up Italy: Voyages on a Vespa
Matthew Fort

Harper Perennial £7.99, pp292

You have to feel sorry for food writers. Eating your way across Italy on a scooter might sound like a cushy number, but contending with Italian drivers and, potentially even more lethal, Italian portions is not for the faint-hearted. Still, Guardian food writer Fort manfully does his best, forcing down course after course, all in the name of research.

This is actually a cookery book as well as a travelogue, since Fort doesn't just consider the ingredients, producers and variations of Italian cuisine, but includes recipes for many of the regional dishes he samples.

In the process, Matthew Fort also gives a perceptive account of the historical and social factors that have helped form a country where good food and eating are a way of life. This delightful and enticing book makes your mouth water just to read it.

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