Paperbacks: A Married Woman<br></br>The House of Blue Mangoes<br></br>Crow Lake<br></br>Youth<br></br>The New Penguin Book of Love Poetry

A Married Woman by Manju Kapur (Faber & Faber, £10.99, 310pp)

Set in Nineties Delhi, Manju Kapur's second book includes all the themes you might expect to find in an old-style feminist novel (wife escapes from oppressive marriage, discovers sex, art and liberation politics), minus the earnestness and Open University lecturers. The spiritual follow-up to her popular debut novel, Difficult Daughters, which examined the new-found freedoms of educated Indian women at the time of Partition, this latest book brings similar lightness of touch and passion to the story of a woman locked in a traditional Hindu marriage.

Astha, the novel's mostly miserable heroine, has everything a middle-class Delhi woman could wish for – a comfortable house, loyal husband, children, servants and a teaching job at the local school. But as her children grow past toddlerdom, she's consumed by overwhelming feelings of frustration, taking refuge in migraines and afternoons in darkened rooms.

Release finally arrives for Astha in the form of a travelling theatre group. Energised by the radical teachings of its founder, Aijaz, she takes up painting and, after his sudden death, embarks on a passionate affair with his widow. Alternating between Astha's intense courtship and scenes from her mundane home life – descriptions of miserable family holidays to Goa and Disney World are a particular treat – this fluent and witty novel gets under the skin of a marooned woman giddily and triumphantly set adrift by the promise of love.

The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar (Phoenix, £6.99, 481pp)

As CEO of Penguin India, David Davidar knows everything there is to know about the writing talents of Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy and Rohinton Mistry. Now he has written his own multi-generation saga in the grand tradition. Set in the south of India and spanning the first half of the 20th century, the novel tracks the personal and political history of the Dorias, a Christian family whose sons include village headmen, tea plantation managers and manufacturers of skin-whitening cream. A contemplative novel about colonialism, lifted by the author's interest in landscape, weather and all matters botanical.

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson (Vintage, £6.99, 295pp)

Set in a small farming community in northern Ontario, Mary Lawson's page-turning debut is the story of a family falling apart. The Morrisons are an uptight Presbyterian couple who have finally escaped into white collardom. When their eldest son, Luke, wins a place at teacher-training college, a tragedy occurs so terrible as to blow all thoughts of future happiness out of the water. It's as if Carol Shields had got hold of an Anita Shreve story and stamped out all the mawkish bits: Lawson's prose is as uncluttered as the emotional and physical horizons she describes.

Youth by J M Coetzee (Vintage, £6.99, 169p)

The writer who has famously won two Booker Prizes, and notoriously failed to turn up to collect them, gives some hint as to why in this second instalment of his memoirs. The book opens with Coetzee at university in Cape Town, but soon sees him in England, pursuing his fantasy of life in a cultural capital. But, instead of a bohemian existence of poetry readings and artistic girls, he finds himself a "dull and odd-looking" creature dressed in raincoat and sandals, surviving on cauliflower cheese. Related in the third person, it is a dispiriting affair – the highlight of his sojourn being the discovery of the fiction of Beckett.

The New Penguin Book of Love Poetry edited by Jon Stallworthy (Penguin, £9.99, 395pp)

Sometimes salty, never schmaltzy, this richly mixed anthology – Sappho to Stevie Smith – first appeared in 1973. For this new edition, Jon Stallworthy has added 53 poetic reflections on modern love. Pieces by Carol Ann Duffy, Wendy Cope, Simon Armitage and others prove that desire, deception and dejection still give good grounds for verse. The thematic arrangement (Persuasions and Celebrations, down to Separations and Desolations) means that a variety of voices and eras amplify each amorous mood. Soul food for romantics and sceptics alike.