• The Best D.H. Lawrence Books - Twilight in Italy by D. H. Lawrence
  • The Best D.H. Lawrence Books - Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
  • The Best D.H. Lawrence Books - Mr Noon by D. H. Lawrence
  • The Best D.H. Lawrence Books - Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine by D. H. Lawrence
  • The Best D.H. Lawrence Books - Birds, Beasts and Flowers by D. H. Lawrence

The Best D.H. Lawrence Books, recommended by Catherine Brown

Although less flamboyantly experimental than his contemporaries Joyce and Woolf, D H Lawrence was a modernist, says literary scholar Catherine Brown. Here, she selects five books that make the case for this most contradictory, and often divisive, of writers—a man whose fictions and ‘philosophicalish’ works were by turns brilliant and bewildering, sublime and ridiculous

  • The Best George Eliot Books - Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - Adam Bede by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - Middlemarch by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals by John Walter Cross

The Best George Eliot Books, recommended by Philip Davis

George Eliot is all but synonymous with Victorian realism; for D H Lawrence, she was the first novelist to start ‘putting all the action inside.’ Here, Philip Davis, author of The Transferred Life of George Eliot, selects the best books by or about one of the greatest novelists of all time: ‘If you want to read literature that sets out to create a holding ground for raw human material—for human struggles, difficulties, and celebrations—read George Eliot’

  • The Best Cormac McCarthy Books - Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Best Cormac McCarthy Books - Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Best Cormac McCarthy Books - Reading the World: Cormac McCarthy's Tennessee Period by Dianne C. Luce
  • The Best Cormac McCarthy Books - All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Best Cormac McCarthy Books - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Best Cormac McCarthy Books, recommended by Stacey Peebles

From All The Pretty Horses to Blood Meridian to The Road, American novelist Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) was a titan of literary fiction for his philosophical, violent, often deeply moving novels. Cormac McCarthy expert Stacey Peebles introduces us to the author’s oeuvre—and tells us that despite its apocalyptic bleakness, The Road is actually McCarthy’s “happiest book.”

  • The Best Agatha Christie Books - Endless Night by Agatha Christie
  • The Best Agatha Christie Books - The ABC Murders (1936) by Agatha Christie
  • The Best Agatha Christie Books - A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie
  • The Best Agatha Christie Books - Agatha Christie: An English Mystery by Laura Thompson
  • The Best Agatha Christie Books - The Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie

The Best Agatha Christie Books, recommended by Mathew Prichard

Agatha Christie wrote some 80 mysteries and short story collections, nearly all designed to entertain and delight readers with their ingenious plot twists. Here, her only grandson, Mathew Prichard, who oversaw her literary estate for many decades, recommends books that give a good sense of the range of her work, from Miss Marple to Hercule Poirot to mysteries featuring neither, and including her best short story.  

  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - Rambles Beyond Railways by Wilkie Collins
  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins
  • The Best Books by Wilkie Collins - Heart and Science by Wilkie Collins

The Best Books by Wilkie Collins, recommended by Jason Hall

Wilkie Collins, the sensationalist author and inventor of the detective novel, knew precisely how to “make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait”. Jason Hall, Victorian literature expert and editor of a new edition of Jezebel’s Daughter, chooses the five best books from Collins’s extensive oeuvre – and considers the voracious appetites and unorthodox lifestyle of this intriguing Englishman.