Excavating buried pasts to soothe unhappy souls

This livid, lurid but enthralling history of "sex, class and power in the age of Profumo" boasts a rare passion and bravado.

The “Gentle Author” began a Spitalfields Life blog in 2009. It consists of quietly respectful interviews with local people around the writer's manor, just east of the City. Fine photographs and drawings adorn a lovely printed version.

Brilliant writer, anguished mother – and hapless lover. This portrait of a gifted literary voice reveals author through her 'monster' son

Howard Jacobson's latest comic novel looks for laughs a little too close to home. Guy Ableman is a novelist who likes to celebrate “our lower instincts” and whose work has been described by one reviewer as “a verbal sperm-fest”.

Sara Maitland recounts how she spent a year visiting the wilder forests of England and Scotland in search of “the tangled roots” of northern European fairy tales.

Tender and moving, this novel about the loss of memory also reaffirms the value of the storyteller

Trilling's clear-eyed endeavour to chart the rise of the far-right in Britain begins with a meeting with Nick Griffin, chairman of the British National Party in 2011, and proceeds backwards, first to the 1990s and the rise of the BNP, then the birth of the National Front in 1967, and beyond.

This rich collage of characters and events adds up to a devastating picture of a country in crisis

The new Children's Laureate begins her tenure with a timely futuristic tale of war and resistance

In another wonderfully arcane novel, Norfolk tells the story of 17th-century kitchen boy, John Saturnall, whose refined sense of smell allows him to identify the contents of any cooking pot.

M ore than half the world's population live in cities, and the percentage will continue to rise. We accept our place in cities passively, whether stuck in a gridlock in Sao Paolo, or ambling across Hyde Park. But what, exactly, are we in for in the next decade or two?

Allen Lane, £25

Virago, £16.99

Even a gem needs a bit of a polish