• The Best Russia Books: The 2023 Pushkin House Prize - Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine by Owen Matthews
  • The Best Russia Books: The 2023 Pushkin House Prize - Russia's War by Jade McGlynn
  • The Best Russia Books: The 2023 Pushkin House Prize - Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia by Natasha Lance Rogoff
  • The Best Russia Books: The 2023 Pushkin House Prize - Places of Tenderness and Heat: The Queer Milieu of Fin-de-Siècle St. Petersburg by Olga Petri
  • The Best Russia Books: The 2023 Pushkin House Prize - Cigarettes and Soviets: Smoking in the USSR by Tricia Starks
  • The Best Russia Books: The 2023 Pushkin House Prize - Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling by Ryan Tucker Jones

The Best Russia Books: The 2023 Pushkin House Prize, recommended by Ekaterina Schulmann

Since its invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia has been much in the news, with many of us struggling to better understand its politics, history, society and culture. Fortunately, we have the Pushkin House Book Prize, which every year celebrates the best nonfiction written about Russia and available in English. Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, chair of this year’s judging panel, talks us through the books that made the 2023 shortlist.

  • The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding - Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution by Tania Branigan
  • The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding - Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire by Nandini Das
  • The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding - The Violence of Colonial Photography by Daniel Foliard
  • The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding - Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation by Kris Manjapra
  • The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding - Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo
  • The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding - Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living by Dimitris Xygalatas

The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, recommended by Madawi Al-Rasheed

The annual British Academy Book Prize seeks out books that promote ‘global cultural understanding’—something we could all do with more of right now. Anthropologist Madawi Al-Rasheed, a visiting professor at LSE and one of the prize’s judges, talks us through the six excellent books that made the 2023 shortlist, from the ancient Library of Alexandria to fire walking in contemporary Greece.

  • The Best Science Books for Children: the 2023 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - Bodies, Brains & Bogies by Paul Ian Cross & Steve Brown (illustrator)
  • The Best Science Books for Children: the 2023 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - Live Like a Hunter Gatherer Naomi Walmsley, Mia Underwood (illustrator)
  • The Best Science Books for Children: the 2023 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - Am I Made of Stardust? Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Chelen Écija (illustrator)
  • The Best Science Books for Children: the 2023 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - Step Inside Science: Germs by Sarah Hull & Teresa Bellon (illustrator)
  • The Best Science Books for Children: the 2023 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - Ben Rothery's Deadly and Dangerous Animals by Ben Rothery
  • The Best Science Books for Children: the 2023 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - A Bug's World by Dr Erica McAlister & Stephanie Fizer Coleman (illustrator)

The Best Science Books for Children: the 2023 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize, recommended by Usha Goswami

The judges of the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize look for books that explain high quality science in an engaging and accessible way. Neuroscientist Usha Goswami, chair of the 2023 judging panel, explains why it is important to get children excited about science via books, and introduces us to the fabulous titles that made this year’s shortlist.

  • The Best Travel Books of 2023: The Stanford Travel Writing Awards - In The Shadow of the Mountain by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
  • The Best Travel Books of 2023: The Stanford Travel Writing Awards - High: A Journey Across the Himalaya, Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, and China by Erika Fatland, translated by Kari Dickson
  • The Best Travel Books of 2023: The Stanford Travel Writing Awards - Crossed Off the Map: Travels in Bolivia by Shafik Meghji
  • The Best Travel Books of 2023: The Stanford Travel Writing Awards - The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East by Rebecca Lowe
  • The Best Travel Books of 2023: The Stanford Travel Writing Awards - The Po: An Elegy for Italy's Longest River by Tobias Jones

The Best Travel Books of 2023: The Stanford Travel Writing Awards, recommended by Cal Flyn

Every year, Stanfords, the best travel bookshop in the world (in our view), sponsors the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, with travel writers and journalists judging the best travel book in a number of categories. Here Cal Flyn, our deputy editor, takes us through the eight books shortlisted for the 2023 ‘Travel Book of the Year’ award, taking us from Bolivia to Singapore via Europe, the Middle East and the top of Mt. Everest.