The Best Naval Historical Fiction, recommended by Katie Daysh
Whether based on fact or fiction, novels set aboard ships can make for some of the best stories around. Novelist Katie Daysh, author of A Merciful Sea, introduces us to five of her favourites from the classic American novel that inspired Jaws to a horror story set aboard a U-boat in World War I.
HISTORICAL FICTION The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden
“Readers can expect to be shocked, disturbed, conflicted, haunted even, by this story. They’ll also find the book stays with them after they’ve put it down”—Katharine Grant, judge, Walter Scott Prize
THRILLERS The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
“Freddie had been Reuters correspondent in Germany and was aware that there was a significant number of former Nazis ending up in government and Simon Wiesenthal told him about Odessa”—Guy Walters, journalist
HISTORY BOOKS The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss
“He was sold as a slave, and was such a good fighter that he was sent to gladiator school in Italy. There he was trained in brutal fighting skills…then he rebelled. He starts with 70 fellow gladiator slaves in Italy, and incites this rebellion which grows until he’s got an army of 60,000″—Adrienne Mayor, Classicist
CLASSIC LITERATURE Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
“The novel is based on an actual woman called Moll King who was an accomplice of a well-known organized crime boss in the 18th century”—Sophie Gee, professor, Princeton University and host, Secret Life of Books podcast
NONFICTION BOOKS Agent Zo by Clare Mulley
“Elżbieta Zawacka…came to London from Warsaw, where she was secretly trained in the British countryside. Then she joined the Polish elite special forces and was parachuted behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied Poland”—Kavita Puri, Journalist
HISTORICAL MYSTERIES The Shardlake Series by C.J. Sansom
“You’re not thinking, ‘This is a murder mystery.’ You’re thinking, ‘I’m in the Tudor times’…They’re fantastic stories”—Lesley Thomson, novelist
NONFICTION
🏆 Winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich
“The first chapter of her book is about a woman, Lyudmilla Ignatenko. She’s the wife of a fireman who goes off in the middle of the night to fight the fire.”—Kate Brown, historian
HISTORICAL FICTION In the Distance by Hernan Diaz
“The story follows the life of Hakan, a Swedish immigrant who moves to the United States with his brother in the 1800s…I think it might be one of my favourite books ever”—Paul Carlucci, Novelist
THE BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus
“This is the first book in a series of thrillers set in an American high school that go down extremely well with readers aged 12-15.”—Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books
FICTION James: A Novel by Percival Everett
🏆 Winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
“The magisterial craft of James by Percival Everett lies in its combination of biting humour and a page-turning plot, with ruminations on sovereignty and Voltaire along the way”—Lara Choksey, judge, Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
ECONOMICS BOOKS Thinking Strategically by Avinash Dixit & Barry Nalebuff
“This guide to game theory is the book that first made me fall in love with economics”—Tim Harford, economist & FT columnist
Best Beach Reads 2025
“Looking for the perfect books to escape with whilst you’re on holiday? From thrillers to romances and fantasy to cottage core, these are our top page-turners”—Francesca Martin, journalist
HISTORY BOOKS The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark
“…the difference between people who think that the First World War was caused by German aggression and those who think it was all a terrible accident and that the world slipped into war. That’s the view of Christopher Clarke’s book, The Sleepwalkers“—Jonathan Boff, historian
AI BOOKS ChatGPT-4 offers its own opinions on artificial intelligence “These books offer valuable insights into the development, challenges, and future prospects of AI”—ChatGPT-4, AI chatbot
SCIENCE FICTION The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin
“This is part of Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle…It follows a human logging company on a small planet that’s covered in ocean and a few islands covered in forest.”—Erika Nesvold, astrophysicist
FANTASY FICTION Uprooted: A Novel by Naomi Novik
“Much of the book is the heroine coming into her own power, learning that she has her own magical talents. As she becomes more powerful, she has to go and save her friend, who has been taken by the forest”—Ursula Vernon, Novelist
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