If it's dark satire you're after Jimfish by Christopher Hope (Atlantic Books) R275Goo-natured Jimfish, a South African Everyman of indeterminate race, embarks on an odyssey through the last days of apartheid and on to the wider world beyond our borders, taking in Mobutu's Zaire, Zimbabwe, Uganda and even Chernobyl. Much evil, totalitarian horror, brutality and rank stupidity is encountered in this fable on the politics of power. The targets may seem easy, but Hope is an expert at savaging them.The issueFurther to the exaggerated outrage and other childish reactions to Allister Sparks's suggestion at the weekend that Hendrik Verwoerd was a smart politician - quite how this could be seen as an endorsement in any way of apartheid is beyond me - I would suggest that the former Rand Daily Mail editor's only mistake here was to overestimate the intelligence of the chattering classes.Which brings me to Peter Longerich's new work, Goebbels (Bodley Head). The book makes it abundantly clear that Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister and the Führer's most loyal acolyte, was not a "smart politician" but a lowly insecure narcissist whose lifelong search for a charismatic father figure led him to Hitler.Longerich is the first historian to make use of Goebbels's extensive diaries in a biography. He ploughed through 30000 pages, or 21 years, of the stuff to expose a twisted personal life - mawkishly sentimental, Goebbels was a man with a voracious sexual appetite.And therein lies the problem. So much diary material has been used that the Goebbels estate wants à6300 (about R84300) from Longerich's German publishers. Random House Germany has refused to pay and the matter has gone to court. Interestingly, the lawyer acting for the estate is Cordula Schacht, the daughter of Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler's economics minister, who was acquitted at Nuremberg.Historians have taken a keen interest in the matter. As one academic put it, in The Times Higher Education supplement: "I regularly cite works by Nazi race theorists, some better known than others, in my work, and I do so on the assumption that there are no copyright issues." That may now change.Crash courseTough words from Mona Eltahawy, award-winning journalist and commentator on Arab and Muslim issues, in plugging her new book, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (W&N). Asked if all religions were misogynistic, she told The Observer: "Absolutely, to some degree. All religions, if you shrink them down, are all about controlling women's sexuality ... They're obsessed with my vagina. I tell them: stay outside my vagina unless I want you there."Bottom line"Being shocked is part of the democratic debate. Being shot is not." - Charlie Hebdo editor Gerard Biard, accepting the PEN America award for "freedom of expression courage"...