• 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 Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners - Peacemakers by Margaret MacMillan
  • The Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners - 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro
  • The Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners - Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
  • The Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners - Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
  • The Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners - Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis
  • The Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners - One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown

The Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners, recommended by Sophie Roell

“All the best stories are true” runs the tagline of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, the UK’s pre-eminent nonfiction book award. This year, to celebrate the prize’s 25th birthday, a panel of judges picked out books for a winner of winners award, making for an excellent collection of nonfiction books from the last quarter of a century, as Five Books editor Sophie Roell explains.

  • The Best Politics Books: the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Writing - My Fourth Time, We Drowned by Sally Hayden
  • The Best Politics Books: the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Writing - Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad by Michela Wrong
  • The Best Politics Books: the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Writing - Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy by Adam Tooze
  • The Best Politics Books: the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Writing - Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit
  • The Best Politics Books: the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Writing - Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller
  • The Best Politics Books: the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Writing - The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber & David Wengrow

The Best Politics Books: the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, recommended by David Edgerton

From the dawn of humanity to the Covid crisis, from a study in power to the plight of the powerless, the Orwell Prize for Political Writing looks for books that break through the mendacities of politics and rise to the challenge of our times, explains historian David Edgerton, chair of this year’s judging panel. He talks us through the ten fabulous books that made the 2022 shortlist.

  • 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 Food Books: The 2023 Fortnum & Mason Food And Drink Awards - Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey by Felicity Cloake
  • The Best Food Books: The 2023 Fortnum & Mason Food And Drink Awards - The Joy of Snacks: A Celebration of One of Life's Greatest Pleasures, with Recipes by Laura Goodman
  • The Best Food Books: The 2023 Fortnum & Mason Food And Drink Awards - A Portrait of British Cheese: A Celebration of Artistry, Regionality and Recipes by Angus Birditt
  • The Best Food Books: The 2023 Fortnum & Mason Food And Drink Awards - Breadsong: How Baking Changed Our Lives by Al Tait & Kitty Tait
  • The Best Food Books: The 2023 Fortnum & Mason Food And Drink Awards - Takeaway: Stories From a Childhood Behind the Counter by Angela Hui

The Best Food Books: The 2023 Fortnum & Mason Food And Drink Awards, recommended by Clare Finney

Every year, the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards celebrate the best books across a range of food, cookery and drink categories. Here British food writer Clare Finney, one of the judges for this year’s awards, talks us through the fabulous books that made the 2023 shortlists—and shows how they are about much more than just delicious food.

  • 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 Narrative Nonfiction Books - Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
  • The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
  • The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
  • The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
  • The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books - City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence

The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books, recommended by Samira Shackle

Narrative nonfiction is a style of writing that takes the facts and dramatises them to create novelistic retellings of real life events. Samira Shackle, author of Karachi Vice, a book that offers vivid insight into the lives of five of the city’s residents, recommends five books that have inspired her—and explains how a writer might begin to carve ‘plot’ and ‘characters’ from reams of research material.

  • The best books on Literary Letter Collections - Letters to a Young Painter by Rainer Maria Rilke
  • The best books on Literary Letter Collections - The Death and Letters of Alice James: Selected Correspondence by Alice James
  • The best books on Literary Letter Collections - Letters to Felice by Franz Kafka
  • The best books on Literary Letter Collections - Letters: 1925-1975 by Hannah Arendt & Martin Heidegger
  • The best books on Literary Letter Collections - Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence by Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell

The best books on Literary Letter Collections, recommended by Lucas Zwirner

The next release in the ekphrasis series from David Zwirner Books is Oscar Wilde’s The Critic as Artist, including an introduction by Michael Bracewell and a colour portrait of Wilde by Marlene Dumas. Head of Content Lucas Zwirner talks to Five Books about the inspiration he’s drawn from literary letters and how they inform the editorial direction of publishing house.

  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Selected Prose by Charles Lamb
  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings by Matthew Arnold
  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Selected Essays, Poems, and Other Writings by George Eliot
  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - Studies in the History of the Renaissance by Walter Pater
  • David Russell on The Victorian Essay - The Hands of the Living God: An Account of a Psychoanalytic Treatment by Marion Milner

David Russell on The Victorian Essay

With the advent of the Victorian age, polite maxims of eighteenth-century essays in the Spectator were replaced by a new generation of writers who thought deeply—and playfully—about social relationships, moral responsibility, education and culture. Here, Oxford literary critic David Russell explores the distinct qualities that define the Victorian essay and recommends five of its greatest practitioners.

  • The Best Books on the Philosophy of Travel - Mountain Gloom And Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite by Marjorie Hope Nicolson
  • The Best Books on the Philosophy of Travel - Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark by Mary Wollstonecraft
  • The Best Books on the Philosophy of Travel - Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  • The Best Books on the Philosophy of Travel - The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
  • The Best Books on the Philosophy of Travel - How to Talk About Places You've Never Been: On the Importance of Armchair Travel by Michele Hutchison (translator) & Pierre Bayard

The Best Books on the Philosophy of Travel, recommended by Emily Thomas

At its best, travel broadens our minds, expands our horizons and allows us to see the world we live in differently. But it has also played an important role in the history of philosophy. Emily Thomas, author of The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad, explores the connections between her two passions—philosophy and travel—at a moment when most of us are unable to leave our houses: perhaps the perfect moment to reflect on travel’s significance for human beings.

  • The Best True Crime Books - The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
  • The Best True Crime Books - The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale
  • The Best True Crime Books - The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
  • The Best True Crime Books - All The President’s Men by Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein
  • The Best True Crime Books - The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? by Francisco Goldman

The Best True Crime Books, recommended by David Grann

True crime books can be all too easily chalked up as a genre of grisly murders and cheap, voyeuristic thrills—but to do so would be to overlook compelling evidence to the contrary. David Grann, whose true crime book revisits long-forgotten, or concealed, crimes in the Osage community of Oklahoma, raises the bar with examples of true crime books rich in historical discovery, literary merit and the kind of political inquiry these murky times are calling for

  • The Best Hiking Memoirs - As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
  • The Best Hiking Memoirs - A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
  • The Best Hiking Memoirs - The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
  • The Best Hiking Memoirs - The Rings of Saturn by W.G Sebald
  • The Best Hiking Memoirs - The Salt Path: A Memoir by Raynor Winn

The Best Hiking Memoirs, recommended by Gail Simmons

Accounts of journeys on foot capture the imagination; partly this is a function of the satisfaction of following a linear journey from start to finish, and partly it is a quality inherent to walking itself—a freeing of the mind. Gail Simmons, who follows an old English pilgrimage route in her book Between the Chalk and the Sea, selects five hiking memoirs that celebrate the liberation that comes from putting one foot after another.