The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing and reading

Showing now

Georgiana Houghton: Spirit Drawings at The Courtauld Gallery, London WC2 (0207848 2526). Born in 1814, Houghton was a spiritualist who believed Titian and Correggio spoke to her, inspiring her abstract watercolours. Visit this “awe-inspiring” show to see the results (Guardian). Ends 11 September.

Fire! Fire! at the Museum of London, EC2 (020-7001 9844). It is 350 years since a stray spark from a baker’s oven caused an inferno that devastated London. This family-friendly exhibition offers a “lively” history lesson about the Great Fire (Telegraph). Ends April 2017.

Book now

There are still two weeks left of the Dartington International Summer School and Festival

in Devon, which has concerts and courses for music lovers of all ages and abilities. Remaining highlights include the Heath String Quartet’s performance of works by Mozart, Bartók and Beethoven, on 20 August (www.dartington.org).

John Malkovich will make his London directing debut with Good Canary, Zach Helm’s acclaimed play about a novelist coping with the demands of overnight success, at Kingston’s Rose Theatre. 16 September-8 October (www.rosetheatrekingston.org).

Just out in paperback

Purity by Jonathan Franzen (4th Estate £8.99). In Franzen’s latest, “we have an interesting set of characters put through a sort of thriller plot, slowed down and given impact by Franzen’s gravity of analysis” (Times).