Dead Famous
Greg Jenner
Weidenfeld, £18.99, pp389
In this engaging and well-researched book, historian Greg Jenner looks at everyone from Lord Byron to Sarah Bernhardt to prove his thesis that celebrity (and the ways it is won, managed and lost), has changed little over the centuries. As befits a consultant to Horrible Histories, Jenner brings his material to vivid life, although occasionally he sacrifices nuance for the broad brush: comparing the castrato Farinelli to Justin Bieber, for instance, is a dumbing-down too far. But such lapses, thankfully, are rare.
The Voice in My Ear
Frances Leviston
Jonathan Cape, £16.99, pp259
The Eric Gregory award-winning poet Frances Leviston makes an auspicious fictional debut with this collection of short stories, all revolving around women named Claire. Although the narratives seem separate – whether it’s a TV journalist cracking up on air, a university librarian hiring a robot to take care of her demanding mother or a babysitter in an increasingly bizarre situation – they are connected by ideas both thematic and personal, not least the presence of overbearing, suffocating mothers. And as you might expect from a poet, Leviston has a beautiful way with prose.
Appeasing Hitler
Tim Bouverie
Vintage, £9.99, pp497
When Neville Chamberlain announced in 1938 that he had secured “peace in our time”, events would prove him catastrophically wrong. Yet it was not solely Chamberlain’s blunder. Tim Bouverie explores, with the ticking clock and artistry of a thriller writer, how complacency, ineptitude and fascist sympathy permeated the English political and aristocratic classes in the 1930s, and how this fatal combination not only led to the rise of Hitler, but nearly did for Britain altogether. Although disaster was averted thanks to those, such as Churchill, who never believed in appeasement, it was a close call that, we learn, ended up far closer than it should have been.
• To order Dead Famous, The Voice in My Ear or Appeasing Hitler go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
• This article was amended on 23 March 2020 to correct Sarah Bernhardt’s name
