Whatever problems the world faces in 2023, we are living in a golden age of nonfiction. There seem to be books targeted at a general audience appearing on every subject imaginable. Which to read depends a lot on what you're interested in, but even on a subject you aren't naturally drawn to, there are quite a few nonfiction books out there that tell a story so compelling you can't put it down. This year, the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, the UK's most prestigious nonfiction book prize, will be selecting not only its best books of the year—always an excellent place to find highly readable nonfiction books—but its best books of the decade.
For our nonfiction books of 2023 recommendations, we'll also be covering the Wolfson Prize, which seeks out the best history books. Towards the end of the year, we'll turn to experts for recommendations on more specialist subjects, like philosophy and economics.
Throughout 2023, our editor, Sophie Roell, will be picking out interesting nonfiction books as they come out. It's inevitably a personal list, but gives a flavour of the kind of books that are out there.
Part of our best books of 2023 series
“A Stranger in Your Own City by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is a beautiful book which tells that story from the point of view of a local resident, an architect, who later ended up working for foreign media, first as a fixer and then as a photographer and writer. The book opens with a chapter on “My First War”—about the Iran-Iraq war, talks about the years of sanctions, and then goes through everything that happened from 2003 up to the present. I couldn’t put it down. It’s like having a friend telling you what they lived through and finally being able to understand what happened and why things went so wrong.” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction of Early 2023
Sophie Roell, Journalist
Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
by Tania Branigan
If you want to understand China, there is one piece of its history that you must understand, and that's the Cultural Revolution. Nothing about the present makes sense without it. As the late Roderick Macfarquhar explained in his interview with us, more than 100 million people were affected and yet, unlike Rwanda, South Africa or Germany post-World War II, China has yet to come to terms with what happened during those ten years of chaos. Red Memory is by journalist and China expert Tania Branigan, and has already been flagged by historian Jeff Wasserstrom, who recommends our China books each year, as likely to be among the best of 2023.
The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
by Peter Frankopan
The Earth Transformed is by Peter Frankopan, a professor of global history at the University of Oxford and a specialist on Byzantium. However, in The Earth Transformed he tells the story not of political dynasties and wars but of the world's climate. Frankopan is a nice writer so this is a good way to get up to speed on the world's climate history, though it is long—650 or so pages—so it's more compendium of information than quick summary.
“The book takes us through his trip to the United States (age 19), the basis of his book, Democracy in America, as well as his less-known trips to Algeria, Italy, England and Ireland. Even on his honeymoon to Switzerland, Tocqueville found time to analyse the local system of government, expressing a ‘lofty disdain for the federal constitution of Switzerland’ which he felt was ‘the most lax, powerless, blundering and incapable that one could imagine.’ Given how smoothly Switzerland functions today, it’s quite funny; his mistakes on Algeria less so. This is a book which makes heavy use of primary sources, i.e. you are constantly reading about Tocqueville in his own voice.” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction of Early 2023
Sophie Roell, Journalist
The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World
by Karl Schlögel
The Soviet Century is a quirky book by German historian Karl Schlögel, who first visited the country in 1966 and knows (knew) it well. He is effectively trying to set up an "exhibition or museum of Soviet civilization" in book form. Not surprisingly for a book that aspires to be a museum, it's long: 819 pages. It's really a book to dip into, reading and looking at the photos and illustrations. For example, there is a ground plan of Lubyanka, the KGB prison by Yury Tregubov, who spent 2.5 years there after being kidnapped from West Berlin in 1947. Or there's a section on Dalstroy, which ran the worst of the gulags, and Schlögel will take you to the literature about it, like Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov.
Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope
by Sarah Bakewell
Unless you’re religious, it’s helpful to understand humanism, a philosophy that provides a possible ethical framework and vision of human beings’ place in the world for those who don’t think a god exists. In today’s world, in countries like the Netherlands, atheism is the default, but it’s not true in many other places, and historically it was a complete no-no. Sarah Bakewell is a nonfiction writer with a novelistic touch, who makes complex ideas accessible by telling the stories of the people who had them. This book covers humanistic thinkers across 700 years, from Erasmus to Zora Neale Hurston.
“You don’t actually do any math in the book, he talks about what, chronologically, was next discovered, and the next step that makes sense. It took hundreds of years to make each discovery, but each step is logical. He’s basically explaining the mathematical ideas you use every day. It’s elegant, it’s beautiful, and the level is quite reasonable.” Read more...
The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award
David Hu, Scientist
“This book is about female anatomy, and also the unsung heroes who have worked in these topics: the hidden figures of female health. We also thought it was special because it tackled a topic that people hadn’t written that much on before. And it was pretty funny as well. It felt like a book that needed to be published, and it was chock full of information.” Read more...
The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award
David Hu, Scientist
“This is an amazing book. It doesn’t feel like a science book when you’re reading it—you don’t get that professorial tone. It’s a very personal book about a woman who is going through a divorce, a topic that we don’t really think science can handle: falling in and out of love. So it’s a completely unexpected book on a topic you wouldn’t think science could touch. It’s also a hilarious book, there are parts that are laugh-out-loud funny. She has the ability to laugh at herself—a depressed woman going through mourning and recovery.” Read more...
The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award
David Hu, Scientist
“The first half of The Wife of Bath: A Biography uses Chaucer’s text to explore various aspects of the lives of/attitudes to medieval women. The second half looks at Alison’s afterlife, from the early scribes who responded to her story as they copied it out to Zadie Smith’s 2021 play. The book is very focused on the text, so it’s probably going to appeal more to people who enjoy literary analysis. “ Read more...
Notable Nonfiction of Early 2023
Sophie Roell, Journalist
“The reason that we thought this book was special was that some of these concepts would be really tough to understand without the book. For example, electromagnetic waves, or how sound is propagated; he gets you to learn some basic physics of how these things work. I think that’s important. It’s a challenging topic, because the physics can be sort of abstract, but he brings in examples of animals that can do all these tasks. It’s also funny and personal.” Read more...
The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award
David Hu, Scientist
“There are times when Haskell’s writing becomes almost poetic. I thought that was great, it’s very different from a typical science book.” Read more...
The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award
David Hu, Scientist
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1
Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey
by Florence Williams -
2
Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage
by Rachel E. Gross -
3
Sounds Wild and Broken
by David George Haskell -
4
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
by Ed Yong -
5
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
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.
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1
A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War
by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad -
2
Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope
by Sarah Bakewell -
3
Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America
by Jeremy Jennings -
4
The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
by Peter Frankopan -
5
The Wife of Bath: A Biography
by Marion Turner
Notable Nonfiction of Early 2023, recommended by Sophie Roell
Notable Nonfiction of Early 2023, recommended by Sophie Roell
As 2023 gets underway, Five Books editor Sophie Roell looks at some of the interesting nonfiction books coming out in the early months of the year (January-March).
