The Baillie Gifford Prize

It's hard to choose the very best nonfiction books of 2017, but the Baillie Gifford Prize aims to do just that. The chair of this year's judging panel, Peter Bazalgette, talks us through the six fabulous books that made the shortlist.

Stephanie Flanders, chair of this year's Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, talks us through some of the best nonfiction books of 2016.

The British public-school system, with its hidden homosexuality and feelings of loneliness, encouraged subterfuge and led to a generation of great spy writers and spies, suggests author and journalist Ben Macintyre. He picks the best books on spies.

Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Margo Jefferson celebrates a form in constant flight from definition, that finds expression in hybrid texts and plays-within-plays, and that is as at home in high art as in pop culture.

The journalist and author Mark O'Connell explored the nature of transhumanism—the belief that technology will help us evolve beyond our current physical and mental limitations—in his award-winning book To Be A Machine. Here he selects five key books that speak directly to the movement.

The science writer and award-winning blogger Carl Zimmer discusses the strangeness of life, from viruses to manipulative flatworms

Greek myths were themselves elastic so there is no reason the classics of Roman and Greek literature shouldn't be updated, says classicist Daniel Mendelsohn. He talks us through some of his favourites.