Support Us
 
Search
MENUMENU
  • Nonfiction
        • Art
          • Architecture
          • Art History
          • Design & Illustration
          • Fashion & Style
          • Modern and Contemporary Art
          • Photography
        • Business
          • How to Invest
          • Leadership
          • Marketing
        • Economics
          • Behavioural Economics
          • Development Economics
          • Economic History
          • Finance
          • Financial Crisis
          • Globalisation & Inequality
          • World Economies
        • Environment
          • Climate Change
          • Environmental Ethics
        • Food & Cooking
          • The Best Cookbooks
          • Food & History of Food
          • Wine & Drinks
        • Health & Lifestyle
          • Death & Dying
          • Education
          • Family & Relationships
          • Happiness
          • Sex & Sexuality
        • History Books
          • American History
          • Ancient History (up to 500)
          • Modern History (1800-1945)
          • History of Science
          • Historical Figures
          • Military History
        • Language
          • Grammar & Punctuation
          • Learning Languages
          • Linguistics
        • Law
        • Literary Nonfiction
          • Biography
          • Essays
          • Memoir
          • Artists' Biographies
          • Travel
          • True Crime
        • Music & Drama
          • Classical Music & Opera
          • Film & Cinema
          • Music
          • Theatre
        • Nature
          • Dinosaurs & the Prehistoric World
          • The Earth
          • Plants, Trees & Flowers
        • Philosophy
          • Ancient Philosophy
          • Ethics & Moral Philosophy
          • Great Philosophers
          • Social & Political Philosophy
        • Politics & Society
          • War
          • Feminism
          • Foreign Policy & International Relations
          • Human Rights
          • Terrorism
        • Psychology
          • Mental Health
          • Neuroscience
          • Psychoanalysis
          • Psychology Research
          • Self Help
        • Religion
          • Best Atheist Books
          • Buddhism
          • Christian
          • Islamic
          • Jewish
          • Religious History
        • Science
          • Astronomy
          • Biology
          • Geoscience
          • Maths & Statistics
          • Moon Landing
          • Popular Science
          • Physics
        • Sports, Games & Hobbies
          • Football (Soccer)
          • Gardening
          • Hobbies
          • Sport & Sporting Culture
        • Technology
          • Artificial Intelligence
          • Computing
          • Digital Age
          • History of Technology
          • Internet
  • Fiction & Literature
        • Classic English Literature
        • American Literature
        • World Literature
        • Literary Criticism
        • Literary Figures
        • Classical Studies
        • Contemporary Fiction
          • NEW Fiction
        • Poetry
        • Memoir
        • Comics & Graphic Novels
        • Fairy Tales & Mythology
        • Historical Fiction
        • Horror
        • Humour
        • Crime Novels
        • Science Fiction
        • Short Stories
        • Romance
        • Thrillers
        • Mystery
        • Fantasy
  • World
        • Africa
          • Egypt
          • Ghana
          • Nigeria
          • Rwanda
          • South Africa
          • Zimbabwe
        • Americas
          • Latin America
            • Argentina
            • Brazil
            • Chile
            • Cuba
            • Mexico
          • United States
          • Canada
        • Arctic & Antarctica
        • Asia
          • Afghanistan
          • Burma
          • China
          • India
          • Japan
          • Korea
          • Pakistan
          • Bangladesh
          • Sri Lanka
          • Singapore
          • Vietnam
        • Australia
        • Europe
          • Belgium
          • Britain
          • France
          • Germany
          • Greece
          • Ireland
          • Italy
          • Netherlands
          • Norway
          • Spain
        • Middle East
          • Iran
          • Iraq
          • Israel
          • Syria
          • Turkey
          • Yemen
        • Russia & FSU
          • Azerbaijan
          • Georgia
          • Russia
          • Ukraine
  • Kids
        • Best New Kids' Books
        • Prizewinning Kids' Books
        • High School Teachers Recommend Books by Subject
        • Best Audiobooks for Kids
        • Novels & Novelists
        • Books for Teens and Young Adults
        • Ages 9-12
        • Ages 6-8
        • Ages 3-5
        • Kids Recommend Books for Kids
        • Economics
        • Environment
        • Family
        • Mental Health
        • Science
  • Best Books of 2020
        • Politics
        • Biography
        • Memoirs and Autobiography
        • Cookbooks
        • Business
        • Philosophy
        • Fiction
          • Crime Fiction
          • Science Fiction
          • Historical Fiction
          • Romance
          • Mysteries
          • Thrillers
        • Nonfiction
        • Art
        • Economics
        • History
        • Science
        • Self Help
        • Audiobooks
        • Poetry
        • Kids' Books
        • Kids' Science
  • New Books
  • Audiobooks
    • Actors Read Great Books
    • Best Audiobooks for Kids
    • Books Narrated by Their Authors
    • Best Audiobook Thrillers
    • Best History Audiobooks
  • Book Awards
    • Booker Prize
    • Baillie Gifford Prize
    • Royal Society
    • Wolfson Prize
    • Walter Scott Prize
    • Arthur C Clarke Prize
    • Audie Awards
    • Nobel Prize
  • Experts

Five Books Fiction Reviews and Author Q&As

Starling Days: A Novel by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Buy now Listen now

Starling Days: A Novel

by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan's thoughtful second novel portrays a marriage in crisis following a suspected suicide attempt. It was shortlisted for the title of novel of the year at the UK's Costa Book Awards in 2019, and released in the US in early 2020.

Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn spoke to the author to find out more.

Read expert recommendations

The Glass House
Buy now Listen now

The Glass House

A new mystery novel from the author of Black Rabbit Hall and The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde. In Eve Chase's The Glass House (published as The Daughters of Foxcote Manor in the US and Canada), a baby girl is discovered in the woods outside a beautiful country manor. Within days a dead body will lie in its grounds. A dark and gripping family drama that will keep you guessing right to the end.

Read expert recommendations

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford
Buy now Listen now

Follow Me to Ground

by Sue Rainsford

An unusually evocative and intriguing debut novel from the Irish writer and art critic Sue Rainsford.

Follow Me to Ground has been reviewed by Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn.

Read expert recommendations

Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony
Buy now Listen now

Enter the Aardvark

by Jessica Anthony

A rollicking work of political satire. Enter the Aardvark lampoons the hypocrisy of the American right, in the form of Republican congressman Alexander Paine Wilson – for whom the arrival of a taxidermied aardvark in the mail triggers a chain of events that threaten to ruin his career. From the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Convalescents and the multimedia love story Chopsticks.

Our deputy editor Cal Flyn spoke to the author to find out more...

Read expert recommendations

Weather: A Novel by Jenny Offill
Buy now Listen now

Weather: A Novel

by Jenny Offill

The new, highly anticipated novel from the author of the bestselling Dept. of Speculation is a fantastically wise, fragmentary work of fiction about life and parenthood in the face of climatological crisis.

 

Read expert recommendations

Supper Club: A Novel by Lara Williams
Buy now Listen now

Supper Club: A Novel

by Lara Williams

A sparkling debut novel from a young British author about a collective of hungry women who meet secretly, in the middle of the night to feast until they are sick. The project is a statement of intent: it is time, they say, to throw off restraint and take up the space that they deserve. This is a novel that will appeal to fans of Nora Ephron's Heartburn and Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends.

Supper Club was reviewed for us by Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn.

Read expert recommendations

The Testaments: A Novel by Margaret Atwood
Buy now Listen now

The Testaments: A Novel

by Margaret Atwood

**The Testaments was the joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize**

Publication of The Testaments has been, without a doubt, the literary event of 2019. Margaret Atwood's much-anticipated sequel to her seminal feminist dystopia The Handmaid's Tale was shortlisted for the Booker before it was released, and published to global fanfare and almost universal acclaim in September.

Set 15 years after the close of The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments is narrated by Aunt Lydia – who readers will remember as a cruel instructor during the handmaids' induction programme – and two younger women, Agnes and Daisy.

Writing in the Guardian, Anne Enright reminded us of Atwood's extraordinary prescience in her imagining of Gilead back in 1986. Endlessly invoked by commentators considering the political turmoil in today's troubled world, The Handmaid's Tale has never seemed more relevant. The Testaments promises more of the same. “If she was right in 1985,” Enright assures us, “she is more right today.”

The Testaments was reviewed by Five Books deputy editor, Cal Flyn.

Read expert recommendations

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
Buy now Listen now

Troubled Blood

by Robert Galbraith

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) is the 5th book in a series featuring Cormoran Strike, a British war veteran who sets up a detective agency in London after losing his leg in a roadside explosion in Afghanistan. The series is one of the most intelligent out there for fans of crime fiction. Our review of Troubled Blood follows below, but if you're new to the books, we recommend reading the series in order. 

Read expert recommendations

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand interviews, or five thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

Newsletter Contact us Privacy Policy Terms of Service

© Five Books 2021