Momentum, by Mo Mowlam (Coronet, £7.99)

Tactile and profane, stubborn and unsilenceable, Mo Mowlam famously infuriates as many as she charms. Instead of an autobiography, she pens a personal chronicle of the peace process - so to learn about her troubled childhood and rackety romantic adventures, you'll have to read Julia Langdon's biography.

Though known for outspokenness, she only talks tough once No 10 starts leaking against her; much of the rest of the book is a sunny political version of an Oscars thank-you speech. And you would imagine that someone anxious to disprove the spinners' slurs that she lost the plot would ensure her apologia evinced rigour, concentration and the ability to prioritise the pivotal; but in fact it's sloppily written and (amid endless back-pats for friends) exasperatingly devotes just two sentences to the issue of whether she was moved from Belfast because David Trimble refused to deal with her.
JD

Footballeur: An Autobiography, by Robert Pires (Yellow Jersey, £12)

Either last season's premiership player of the year now thinks like a British footballer, or his French ghost and English translator have made him sound as if he does. Alter the club names and you could be reading any literal-minded home-grown striker's life story - with the significant difference that the Arsenal star owns World Cup and Euro 2000 winners' medals.

The Gallic penchant for technical analysis is notably absent in a book that omits even to explain why a right-footed monoped prefers slaloming down the left flank. And there's a frustrating shortage of Eric Cantona-like pseudery, one extended comparison of football and theatre apart. Team-mates sound improbably English too: "What position are you playing, exactly?" barks Les Bleus' captain Marcel Desailly like a prep-school teacher, spurring Pires to put in the cross for their golden goal in Rotterdam.
JD