Palaces of Pleasure
Lee Jackson
YUP, £20, 320pp
Lee Jackson’s authoritative and fascinating book makes a nonsense of the claim that the 21st century is the age of mass instant gratification. Jackson, who accurately describes himself as a “well-known Victorianist”, presents a panoramic social history of 19th-century entertainment, ranging from sedate affairs to the barking mad: here, one finds parachuting monkeys, the bawdiest of music-hall songs and even the swimming professor Frederick Beckwith and his family, known as the “Beckwith Frogs”. Every page has some diverting fact and Jackson is a fine guide.
A Stranger City
Linda Grant
Virago, £16.99, 336pp
While other novelists are distracted by Brexit, explicitly or obliquely, Linda Grant’s perspective is far wider. Her latest begins with a dead body being fished from the Thames, which seems to set up a mystery, but Grant is more interested in corralling her characters through a witty and rueful account of contemporary London. Many are newcomers to the city, and this wise and compassionate book asks if we can ever truly belong in a vast metropolis or are destined to do little more than ripple the waters and then be forgotten.
Frieda
Annabel Abbs
Two Roads, £8.99, 384pp
Annabel Abbs’s excellent debut, The Joyce Girl, examined James Joyce’s daughter’s mental health. Her second novel, Frieda, takes a similarly insightful approach to Frieda Lawrence, the German aristocrat who became wife and muse to DH Lawrence. Abbs has a healthy disregard for the “great man” theory of literary history, and this clever and deeply humane book enables Frieda to emerge from her husband’s shadow as she becomes fascinated by ideas of self-fulfilment and empowerment. With a fine eye for period detail, Abbs confirms her standing as one of the best historical novelists today.
• To order Palaces of Pleasure, A Stranger City, or Frieda, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
