In the words of Nelson Mandela, edited by Jennifer Crwys-Williams (Penguin, £3.99)

This is dedicated to the children of South Africa "in the hope that they find inspiration from the thoughts of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela". A little red book for South Africa, then? Mandela has never thought he has all the answers and rejects the role of prophet: "If I have moral authority - and I say if - moral authority doesn't solve the world's problems." Crwys-Williams seems to hanker after an apophthegmatic leader who will lay his wisdom on the masses. Only sometimes do Mandela's words sound like a Churchill or a Mao. Sometimes they are banal and platitudinous. A good man doesn't need much rhetoric.

Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin, by Alexandra Richie (HarperCollins, £14.99)

Why Faust's Metropolis? Because Goethe's Faust was forever striving after knowledge and experience. With Mephistopheles at his command, let nothing stand in his way. Richie portrays a city that repeatedly rises high above its rivals but which then falls low in the eyes of the world, a city of generals, philosophers, writers, businessmen, arch-conservatives and revolutionaries. To tell the story of the city you really have to tell the story of the German nation. Richie does both brilliantly. Gordon A Craig, no less, says he has never read a better history of Berlin.