“I feel this book is really important, because it’s easier to swallow than many of the big books that we have on the history of the A-bomb…The story is really emotional when you see it in pictures. In the beginning, you see the excitement in the scientists’ faces when they discover the chain reaction. It’s an incredible thing. They go into a squash court at the University of Chicago, and it actually happens. Everybody’s shocked and amazed and excited… The way they depict Einstein and his suffering… Everybody was saying, ‘We need to have the A-bomb.’ But then, when you have it, you realize you’ve created a monster.” Read more...
Five Graphic Novels People Need to Read
Ivanka Hahnenberger ,
Translator
“It’s about the period of American history between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the beginning of the American Civil War. (Note that in the UK, the book’s subtitle is: ‘Abraham Lincoln and America’s Road to Civil War’: this is not a story we are as familiar with on this side of the Atlantic).” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2024
Sophie Roell ,
Journalist
“It’s got octopus, so what more does anyone need to know? There’s a hint of the film Arrival in the depiction of the attempts to make first contact with a very alien species – octopus anatomy and psychology is so alien to ours and there’s been some speculation that they come from a very different origin to us. They are incredibly talented at escaping from captivity and seeking revenge on their human keepers. The book encourages us to see humanity through their eyes and this isn’t always pretty. Meanwhile, we’ve got side-plots with robotic monks and assassination attempts, and it all comes together in a satisfying way.” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction: The 2024 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist
Andrew M. Butler ,
Film Critics & Scholar
“It’s about the battle for spices in what is now Indonesia and focuses on the rivalry between Spain and Portugal over 60 years in the 16th century. That spices should be worth more than their weight in gold and prompt people to risk death exploring treacherous routes to get to them is a compelling story and Crowley tells it well.” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2024
Sophie Roell ,
Journalist
“This was the longest and most devastating siege in the history of World War II. Hitler was determined to take over the Russian city for symbolic reasons, and during the two-and-a-half-year siege 750,000 civilians were deliberately starved to death…with excellent research in archives which weren’t available before, Reid shows how totally cynical Stalin’s attitude was to Leningrad. Indeed it was a major factor in the appalling loss of life and suffering.” Read more...
The best books on World War II
Antony Beevor ,
Military Historians & Veteran
“As far as I know, every single myth and every single variation, every single little nugget of Greek myth that isn’t necessarily even complete, is in there. This is my Greek myth bible. Robert Graves was the most amazing ancient history scholar and a marvellous writer as well…They’re not meant to be flowery or literary. They cram in absolutely everything. He has the most massive footnotes as well and references to where he found the actual myths: usually Hyginus or Diodorus Siculus or somebody that before I read Graves I’d never even heard of. In fact I now have my own copies of Apollodorus and Diodorus Siculus and Hyginus. The footnotes are just amazing. I learned so many different nuggets there, it’s almost worth reading just for them…You can’t say you really know about Greek myths until you have read it. But I wouldn’t say sit down and think you’re going to do it all in one go. Take it in chunks.” Read more...
The best books on Greek Myths and Mythology
Lucy Coats ,
Children's Author
“Another book that captured my attention was The Roads to Rome by Catherine Fletcher, which looks at the ancient road network across the Roman Empire but also across the centuries since they were built. It’s a travelogue, kind of: you join her going around Rome—including to the Via Appia Antica where, even today, the giant stones continue to give an idea of what parts of this 100,000-kilometer network of roads once looked like—and then out across 14 countries. It’s an account of how the roads captured people’s imagination, from writers like Goethe to dictators like Hitler.” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2024
Sophie Roell ,
Journalist
“This book…is a rebuttal to Strunk & White… Strunk & White is widely respected as a very handy little resource for basic rules about writing clearly: be concise, don’t overload your sentences with adjectives and these kinds of prescriptions. Dictionaries are descriptive, but things like Garner’s Modern American Usage and Strunk & White are prescriptive: they say, ‘This is what you should do.’ I recognise the value of Strunk & White , but as I alluded to earlier, I’m all about being open to breaking rules. I really admire the author of Spunk & Bite for basically turning Strunk & White upside down and saying: yes, but no. If you want to load your sentences with adjectives, lots of great writers do that. OK, Hemingway doesn’t, but somebody else does. So if you want to sound like Hemingway, then no adjectives are allowed. If you want to sound like somebody else, then dump the wheelbarrow full of adjectives into every sentence, and go for it. I just appreciate that sense of ‘Know the rules, but then break them, if it works for you.'” Read more...
The Best Grammar and Punctuation Books
Mark Nichol ,
Linguist
“Default by Gregory Makoff takes on Argentina’s 2001 default, and the battle over the restructuring of $100 billion in debt. On the face of it, it seems like a niche subject, but it’s one way of getting insight into how capitalism works—the billions at stake and what some players do to get their hands on that money. Don’t dismiss Argentina as a faraway case of no relevance to the country you live in: some of those players are active in government and other debt near you. Perhaps they even own your country’s biggest bookstore chain.” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2024
Sophie Roell ,
Journalist
“Piper is one of those writers of the 40s, 50s and ’60s who is not remembered well enough. And I think this is one of his two best books, the other being Space Viking . It’s set in western Pennsylvania, in the area where he lived his whole life, so it has the local colour baked in. It drops a policeman from our world into a world where the Indo-Europeans, instead of having gone west across Asia and into Europe as they did in most timelines, went east – they went across by raft and boat, and settled North America.” Read more...
The Best Alternate History Novels
Harry Turtledove ,
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