Love Without End

Melvyn Bragg
Sceptre £20, 320pp

In Bragg’s 22nd novel, a fictionalised account of legendary star-crossed lovers Heloise and Abelard unfolds in tandem with the struggles of its author, an academic named Arthur, whose voice will sound disconcertingly familiar to In Our Time listeners. Arthur is sojourning in Paris with his grown daughter, and while he’s eager for her youthful take on his opus, what she’s after is the truth about her parents’ divorce. Occasionally, this present-day narrative threatens to unpick the magic of its historical counterpart, but it all comes together in a rich tapestry of devotion in its many guises, with some cerebral jousting and a memorably gruesome castration scene.

The Three Dimensions of Freedom

Billy Bragg
Faber Social £6, 106pp

The singer turned author has a flair for pamphleteering. As he fumes midway through this short, sharp broadside: “This is a time of dismissive demagogues promoting a know-nothing politics of swaggering arrogance driven by scorn and spite.” The scoundrels of the piece are many and range from the predictable (capitalism, globalisation, neoliberalism) to the slightly less so (algorithms). Our sole defence, Bragg urges, in prose that has a quiet musicality, is to embrace freedom in all three of its “dimensions”: liberty, equality and accountability.

Facts and Fiction: A Book of Storytelling

Michael Holroyd
Bloomsbury £9.99, 217pp (paperback)

These glancing encounters – 28 in all – show biographer Holroyd at his versatile best: playful and urbane, inquisitive and illuminating. From Mary Norton’s The Borrowers to Lady Di’s butler, he breathes life and intrigue into every subject he alights on, from forgetfulness (don’t underestimate its social advantages) to identity theft via a cat named Zeus. The oldest piece dates from 1979 and deals with the death – or rather, deaths – of Holroyd’s grandfather, while in a glorious piece written three decades on, he muses on the peculiar relationship between portrait painter and sitter – in this case, himself. A joyous collection.

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