In Brief: Providence Lost; The Year Without Summer; Reasons to Be Cheerful – reviews
Providence Lost
Paul Lay
Head of Zeus, £30, pp326
At a time when contemporary history often prizes showmanship at the expense of authority, it is salutary to read Paul Lay’s first book, an often magnificent study of Cromwell’s Protectorate period after the civil war. Here he shines a light on England’s brief life as a republic, whether examining the totalitarian rule of the so-called “major-generals” or offering a finely balanced psychological portrait of Oliver Cromwell. A highly readable book, full of wit, sober thought and scholarly rigour.
The Year Without Summer
Guinevere Glasfurd
Two Roads, £16.99, pp392
Guinevere Glasfurd’s follow-up to her 2016 Costa-shortlisted debut The Words in My Hand is another superb saga, rich in both historical detail and human interest. Glasfurd sets her story in 1816, the year after the eruption of Mount Tambora, and the heavy smog caused by its sulphurous miasma. She follows six narratives throughout the world, ranging from real-life figures including Constable and Mary Shelley to a Fenland farm labourer and a Vermont preacher, and combines her intricate storyline with an impressively realised sense of a world being dragged into the modern age.
Reasons to Be Cheerful
Nina Stibbe
Penguin, £8.99, pp288
Nina Stibbe has been described by the TLS as “England’s greatest living comic novelist”, which, on this evidence, indicates that the genre is in trouble. Her latest novel, the third to feature her protagonist Lizzie Vogel, is a pleasant but slight coming-of-age story, dealing with Lizzie’s relationships with her horrible dentist boss, her ghastly and overwrought mother and her diffident boyfriend. Somewhat reminiscent of the late Sue Townsend, it’s mildly enjoyable but never especially funny. Its Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize-winning status is therefore both perplexing and an unintentionally damning indictment of its competition.
• To order Providence Lost, The Year Without Summer or Reasons to Be Cheerful go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
