The Oxford Literary Festival

The author chooses his top five books on boyhood and growing up, major themes of his Booker-nominated debut The Fishermen.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, intellectuals engaged in the 'great conversation,' a debate about ideas, politics, and beliefs, says British philosopher A C Grayling, author of Ideas That Matter. He picks out five books on ideas about how we live our lives and how we view the world, from Aristotle to Charles Darwin.

Knowledge is power and nowhere has it been better preserved down the millennia than in libraries. Here Richard Ovenden, author of Burning the Books and the librarian in charge of Oxford University's Bodleian Libraries, talks us through books that shed light on what libraries are and what they do, and why they remain absolutely vital in our digital age.

Given the choice between allowing five people to die, and killing one person, what would you do? What is the utilitarian argument for vegetarianism? Should we be able to sell our kidneys? The philosopher suggests some answers and picks the best books on 'ethical problems.'

Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales not only revolutionized English poetry—they're also extremely funny and moving. Oxford Professor Marion Turner, who has written the first full-length biography of Chaucer in a generation, tells us about the extraordinary man who wrote them and why we should all read the Canterbury Tales. 

Should you feel responsible for helping the world become better? And if so, how should you use your time, money, and career to have the biggest possible impact? These are the questions addressed by the effective altruism movement. One of its leading figures, Will MacAskill, recommends the best books to answer them.

It's been a great year for crime fiction – with soaring sales and global bestsellers emerging from writers all over the world. Crime writing is rightly in the ascendancy, says the celebrated Scottish novelist Val McDermid as she selects the best crime fiction of 2019: five books that stand as great novels in their own right.

Consideration of differences between men and women has been obscured by centuries of biological essentialism, argues Angela Saini – author of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong. Here she discusses five books that examine or demonstrate the misogynistic lens through which female capability has been viewed.

Charles de Gaulle had 'a certain idea of France' which even he didn't manage to articulate clearly. De Gaulle biographer and one of Britain's leading historians of modern France, Julian Jackson, talks us through some key books to get a sense of France's wartime leader and president, Charles de Gaulle.

What can literature offer to medicine and what can medicine offer to literature? Author and physician Gavin Francis offers his professional opinion – and prescribes a list of five notable books at the intersection of his two great passions.