All the winners of the nonfiction book prizes we cover at Five Books have now been announced. These include history, politics, business, science, sports and general nonfiction.
FICTION NEWS: Orbital wins the 2024 Booker Prize Orbital by Samantha Harvey, the first book set in space to win the Booker Prize, follows a team of astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
FICTION BOOKS
The Best Novels of 2024: The Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Nitin Sawhney
“I love this book so much, I ended up writing a piece of music around it”
NONFICTION BOOKS NEWS: Question 7 by Richard Flanagan wins the Baillie Gifford Prize
“There’s a connection with The Narrow Road to the Deep North because that book was also concerned with his father’s experience of being a slave laborer in the Second World War: he was an Australian captured by the Japanese”
NONFICTION BOOKS
The Best Nonfiction Books of 2024: The Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist, recommended by Isabel Hilton
“There’s a Zeitgeist feel to them. They’re very much about today, but each…is drawing threads from the past”
SPY THRILLERS The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry
“Not only is it a good read, but it’s also a great way into the politics of the Middle East”
CRIME FICTION
Award-Winning Crime Novels of 2024, introduced by our editor, Sophie Roell
“In the US, the most highly regarded crime writing prize is probably the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel”
HISTORY BOOKS Traders in Men by Nicholas Radburn
“They create a trade that’s far more profitable because it is much better organized, with absolute cynicism about the subject of the trade: human beings”
BIOGRAPHY The best biographies of 20th-century leaders, recommended by political scientist Michael Mandelbaum “The first half of the 20th century was the era in all of history when individuals could have maximal impact.”
THE FUNNIEST BOOK OF 2024? NEWS: Glorious Exploits wins the Wodehouse Prize
A historical novel set in 412BCE Sicily by Ferdia Lennon has won the UK’s book prize for comedy.
NONFICTION BOOKS Notable Nonfiction of Fall 2024, recommended by Sophie Roell
“It’s been a great few months for new nonfiction”
SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS The Best Sci-Fi Series, recommended by novelist and historian Ada Palmer
“I often think about it, especially if I’m structuring my own series, like composing a symphony”
FANTASY Award-Winning Fantasy Novels of 2024, a roundup by our SFF editor Sylvia Bishop
“This year’s award-winning fantasy books offer something for every taste, from melancholic fairy tales to gripping horror”
MILITARY HISTORY British military historian Sir Antony Beevor on the best books on World War II
“Goebbels was a diabolical genius. He saw that hatred was not enough and you had to combine hatred with fear if you were going to get the maximum killing potential out of your followers”
SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS The best sci-fi: the 2024 Arthur C. Clarke Award, introduced by Andrew M Butler
“One of the jobs of the award is to promote writers that not everyone has heard of. Each of these novels stand alone, rather than being parts of long series.”
HISTORICAL FICTION The Best Historical Fiction of 2024: the Walter Scott Prize with judging chair Katharine Grant
“It’s been a wonderful year for historical fiction”
HISTORICAL FICTION The Best Historical Fiction Set in the American South, recommended by Xan Brooks
“There is the sense of it being a haunted land, still screaming, with no clarity or resolution”
Our aim is to make Five Books the place to go to on the web for book recommendations, arranged by topic. Help us achieve our goal by making a reading list on a subject you know a lot about. These lists have been created by our readers using our new interactive tool. Browse them all, or make your own.
