• The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey by Florence Williams
  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross
  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - Sounds Wild and Broken by David George Haskell
  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
  • The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award - The Big Bang of Numbers: How to Build the Universe Using Only Math by Manil Suri

The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award, recommended by David Hu

Every year, the judges of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award highlight the best new literary science writing. The 2023 shortlist consists of five fascinating books on subjects including the science of heartbreak, the sensory worlds of animals, and the development of mathematics. David Hu, a professor of mechanical engineering and a member of this year’s judging panel, talks us through their choices.

  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire by Caroline Elkins
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - My Fourth Time, We Drowned by Sally Hayden
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown by Anna Keay
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story by Polly Morland
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist, recommended by Caroline Sanderson

Every year the judges of the Baillie Gifford Prize pick out the best nonfiction books published in the United Kingdom over the previous 12 months. Author and books journalist Caroline Sanderson, chair of this year’s judging panel, talks us through the books that made the 2022 shortlist, books that are important, readable and will hopefully surprise you.

  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Glory: A Novel by NoViolet Bulawayo
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - The Trees by Percival Everett
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Neil MacGregor

The Booker Prize is awarded each year to the best original novel written in the English language. We asked the art historian Neil MacGregor, chair of this year’s judging panel, to talk us through the six novels that made the 2022 shortlist—and why fiction can be a most effective means of engaging us emotionally in social and political crisis elsewhere.

  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The Books of Jacob: A Novel by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Frank Wynne

The International Booker Prize celebrates the best fiction in translation published over the previous year. Frank Wynne, acclaimed translator and chair of the 2022 judging panel, tells Five Books about the six novels that made the shortlist, and reminds readers that world literature need not be tough, consumed only in the interests of self-improvement—but is often joyful, surprising and full of feeling.

  • The Best Historical Fiction: The 2022 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist - Rose Nicolson: A Novel by Andrew Greig
  • The Best Historical Fiction: The 2022 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist - News of the Dead by James Robertson
  • The Best Historical Fiction: The 2022 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist - Fortune by Amanda Smyth
  • The Best Historical Fiction: The 2022 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist - The Magician by Colm Tóibín

The Best Historical Fiction: The 2022 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist, recommended by Elizabeth Laird

Every year, the Walter Scott Prize highlights the best new historical novels. In 2022, the shortlist comprises four fantastic works of historical fiction that immerse the reader in the past—from 16th-century Scotland to 1920s Trinidad—while confronting universal human dramas we still struggle with today. Elizabeth Laird, one of the judges, talks us through their choices this year.

  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - A Little Devil in America: Notes In Praise Of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin
  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha by Rodrigo Garcia
  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
  • The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes by Albert Samaha

The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist, recommended by Marion Winik

Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by ‘genre-fluid’ books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik, the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic’s Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.

  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955 by Harald Jähner & Shaun Whiteside (translator)
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - Fall: The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron by John Preston
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist - Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist, recommended by Kathryn Hughes

Every year the judges of the Baillie Gifford Prize pick out the very best nonfiction books, the shortlist they come up with a brilliant way to find gripping books to immerse yourself in. Here cultural historian Kathryn Hughes, one of this year’s judges, talks us through the six books they chose for the 2021 shortlist, books that will draw you in, whatever the subject.

  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers by Emily Levesque
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - The End of Bias, A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias by Jessica Nordell
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth by Stuart Ritchie
  • The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize - Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

The Best Popular Science Books of 2021: The Royal Society Book Prize, recommended by Luke O'Neill

Every year the Royal Society, the world’s oldest independent scientific academy, awards a prize for the best new popular science book. Here, Luke O’Neill—Professor of Biochemistry at Trinity College, Dublin, and chair of the 2021 judging panel—discusses the latest shortlist: six new popular science books that are topical, accessible and infinitely interesting.

  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley
  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter
  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne & Tamara Payne
  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark
  • The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist - The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s by Maggie Doherty

The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist, recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor, the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics’ Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan’s shogun era.

  • The Best of Memoir: the 2020 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child by Laura Cumming
  • The Best of Memoir: the 2020 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
  • The Best of Memoir: the 2020 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
  • The Best of Memoir: the 2020 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
  • The Best of Memoir: the 2020 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist - Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller

The Best of Memoir: the 2020 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist, recommended by Mark Athitakis

From a brave account by the Stanford rape case survivor Chanel Miller to New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow’s gripping tale of investigating the Harvey Weinstein scandal, it’s been a golden year for autobiography. Veteran critic Mark Athitakis talks us through the memoirs that made this year’s National Book Critics Circle autobiography shortlist.

  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - Six Impossible Things: The ‘Quanta of Solace’ and the Mysteries of the Subatomic World by John Gribbin
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - The Remarkable Life of the Skin by Monty Lyman
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - Clearing the Air: The Beginning and End of Air Pollution by Tim Smedley
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - The Second Kind of Impossible: The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter by Paul J. Steinhardt
  • The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist - Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus by Steven Strogatz

The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist, recommended by Nigel Shadbolt

“Science is a profoundly human endeavour. The stories of triumph and success in science, alongside the failures and despair, are compelling.” From a data-driven account of air pollution to a book that makes calculus fun, 2019 has been a great year for science books. Nigel Shadbolt, chair of judges, discusses the six books shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize.

  • The Best Science Books for Kids: the 2019 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - 100 Things to Know About Numbers, Computers & Coding Alex Frith (illustrated by Federico Mariani and Parko Polo)
  • The Best Science Books for Kids: the 2019 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - The Bacteria Book: The Big World of Really Tiny Microbes by Steve Mould
  • The Best Science Books for Kids: the 2019 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - The Element in the Room: Investigating the Atomic Ingredients that Make Up Your Home Mike Barfield (illustrated by Lauren Humphrey)
  • The Best Science Books for Kids: the 2019 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - Kid Scientists: True Tales of Childhood from Science Superstars David Stabler (illustrated by Anoosha Syed)
  • The Best Science Books for Kids: the 2019 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - Planetarium: Welcome to the Museum Raman Prinja (illustrated by Chris Wormell)
  • The Best Science Books for Kids: the 2019 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize - Making With States of Matter by Anna Claybourne

The Best Science Books for Kids: the 2019 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize, recommended by Sheila Rowan

If you’re looking for the best books to get kids excited about science, the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize is a great place to start. Physicist and astronomer Sheila Rowan, chair of this year’s judging panel, talks us through the fabulous books that made this year’s shortlist.