Adam Higginbotham, Sarah Perry, Jenny Uglow and Georgina Harding: Paperbacks of the week

The recent, brilliant HBO drama has renewed interest in the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine, and Higginbotham’s account of the accident itself and the subsequent horror of the effects of the radiation reads like a thriller: forensic, compelling and utterly terrifying

Perry’s rich, atmospheric, meta-gothic novel features Helen Franklin, an English expat with a dark secret who is living in Prague, and the spectral Melmoth, who witnessed Christ’s resurrection but later denied it and so was condemned to wander the world trying to confront evil-doers with the consequences of their sins. An ominous story of creeping dread, perfect for the lengthening evenings

A wonderful, sympathetic portrait of Edward Lear, best known as a composer of limericks and nonsense verse such as The Owl And The Pussycat but also a brilliant artist (he taught Queen Victoria how to draw), an enthusiastic traveller and an accomplished musician. The book is beautifully illustrated and Uglow is especially fascinating on the profound impact Lear’s epilepsy had upon his life and art

At the end of WWII, Charlie Ashe returns from fighting in Burma and India a changed man. Haunted by memories of violence, he takes his young wife Claire to Norfolk, where he now intends to live peacefully and farm but even when working the fields the past is not so easy to forget in this emotional story about the nightmare of war