Looking for the best of literary nonfiction? So are we. We're fortunate that our deputy editor, Cal Flyn, is a leading writer in this field.
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Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
by Anna Funder -
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Nothing to Envy
by Barbara Demick -
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers
by Katherine Boo -
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Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
by Patrick Radden Keefe -
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City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp
by Ben Rawlence
The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books, recommended by Samira Shackle
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 Immersive Nonfiction, recommended by Will Storr
A good writer must always aim to write the truth – a more complex narrative than one of heroes and villains. But to find the truth, sometimes you’ve got to get up and go there yourself, says Will Storr, journalist and author of Selfie. Here he selects five books that have inspired his own immersive approach to nonfiction.
The Best Narrative Nonfiction, recommended by Peter Hessler
Writer and journalist Peter Hessler selects five books, from Haight Ashbury to a fifth grade classroom, which show how nonfiction can bring true stories to life through literary techniques. He chooses the best of narrative nonfiction.
The Best Narrative Nonfiction, recommended by Catherine Manegold
The author and former New York Times reporter says that some of the very best writing today is nonfiction — and that seductive narratives can yank readers into the most diverse range of subjects
The best books on Great Letter Writers, recommended by Jonathan Keates
Queen Victoria was anything but Victorian and Lord Byron was more vulnerable than we think, says writer Jonathan Keates – who considers emails a poor substitute for a hand-written correspondence.
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'The Voyage of St Brendan,' in The Age of Bede
edited by J.F. Webb and D.H. Farmer -
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Sea Room
by Adam Nicolson -
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Selkirk's Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe
by Diana Souhami -
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A Woman in the Polar Night
by Christiane Ritter -
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Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will
by Judith Schalansky
The best books on Islands, recommended by Gavin Francis
The best books on Islands, recommended by Gavin Francis
Generations of writers, explorers and armchair travellers have found a focal point of fascination in the idea of the remote island. Why so? Gavin Francis, the award-winning writer, explains the everlasting appeal of the lonely isle – and why the fantasy is at least as powerful as the salt-sprayed reality – as he selects five of the best books on islands.
The best books on Abandoned Places, recommended by Cal Flyn
Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn selects five of the best books on abandoned places, including a cultural history of ruins, an account of natural recovery in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, plus two unsettling works of science fiction. Her own book, Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape, is out now.
Forgotten Classics, recommended by Scott Pack
Ninety per cent of the books we hear about are new, which means we are missing out on countless masterpieces already out there. Scott Pack, co-founder of the Abandoned Bookshop, a digital publisher that specialises in finding forgotten and neglected books, picks five forgotten classics, for lovers not of the new but of the different…
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Letters to a Young Painter
by Rainer Maria Rilke -
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The Death and Letters of Alice James: Selected Correspondence
by Alice James -
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Letters to Felice
by Franz Kafka -
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Letters: 1925-1975
by Hannah Arendt & Martin Heidegger -
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Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence
by Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell
The Best Literary Letter Collections, recommended by Lucas Zwirner
The Best 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 the publishing house.
The Best Books of Landscape Writing, recommended by Dan Richards
Good writing offers readers an invitation to explore and engage with the world around them, says Dan Richards—author of Outpost and Climbing Days—as he recommends five brilliant books that exemplify the skill of landscape writing.
The best books on Diaries and Autobiography, recommended by Craig Brown
The Private Eye satirist and author recommends five entertaining published diaries, from Andy Warhol to Harpo Marx – and tells us why parody is a pickpocket
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by Malcolm X and assisted by Alex Haley, Laurence Fishburne (narrator) -
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A Place to Stand
by Jimmy Santiago Baca -
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Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison
by Shaka Senghor -
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Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters
by Wally Lamb -
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True Notebooks: A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall
by Mark Salzman
The Best Prison Literature, recommended by David Coogan
The Best Prison Literature, recommended by David Coogan
Prison literature can make difficult reading but is often incredibly touching, testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. David Coogan, an English professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who runs a creative writing workshop at Richmond City Jail, introduces ‘prison literature.’
The best books on Medicine and Literature, recommended by Gavin Francis
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.
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The Memoirs Of Marguerite De Valois
by Marguerite De Valois -
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Why Not Say What Happened?: A Memoir
by Ivana Lowell -
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Casting with a Fragile Thread: A Story of Sisters and Africa
by Wendy Kann -
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The Mighty Queens of Freeville
by Amy Dickinson -
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Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
by Cheryl Strayed
The best books on Memoirs of Dauntless Daughters, recommended by Nancy Goldstone
The best books on Memoirs of Dauntless Daughters, recommended by Nancy Goldstone
In her book The Rival Queens, historian Nancy Goldstone explored the destructive relationship between Marguerite de Valois and her mother Catherine de’ Medici. Here she chooses five different memoirs that best explore the emotionally complex dynamics that characterise mother-daughter relationships.
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La Bibliothèque invisible
by Stéphane Mahieu -
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Mirabiblia: Catalogo ragionato di libri introvabili
by Paolo Albani & Paolo della Bella -
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
by Laurence Sterne -
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Nueva Enciclopedia
by Alberto Savinio -
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The Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas
by Marguerite Duras
Enrique Vila-Matas on Books that Shaped Him
Enrique Vila-Matas on Books that Shaped Him
‘I like to show some restraint when it comes to making things up…’ The Spanish novelist Enrique Vila-Matas discusses the role of risk in writing, the ‘crisis of the novel’, and five books that have shaped his own work. (You can also read this interview in the original Spanish.)
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Wild Child: Coming Home to Nature
by Patrick Barkham -
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English Pastoral: An Inheritance
by James Rebanks -
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Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
by Merlin Sheldrake -
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The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge
by Jeffrey J Kripal -
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Vesper Flights
by Helen Macdonald (author and narrator)
The Best Nature Books of 2020, recommended by Charles Foster
The Best Nature Books of 2020, recommended by Charles Foster
Charles Foster—the barrister, ethicist and bestselling author of Being a Beast—selects five brilliant nature books that reflect a new boom in nature writing in 2020, many of which ask us to examine more closely the interconnectedness of all things.
Editors’ Picks: Notable Books of 2019, recommended by Cal Flyn
Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn reflects on a year of spectacularly rich literary output, highlighting notable new books from Mary Gaitskill and Robert Macfarlane, as well as sparkling debuts that mark the arrival of exciting new literary voices in 2019.
Yiyun Li on the ‘Anti-memoir’
Yiyun Li, author of Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, on the sheer messiness of life, the irrelevance of ‘I’, and why brutal honesty is often the truest way to capture the people we love the most
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Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
by Casey Cep -
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On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons
by Laura Cumming -
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The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth 1922 - 1968
by William Feaver -
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Maoism: A Global History
by Julia Lovell -
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Guest House for Young Widows: Among the women of ISIS
by Azadeh Moaveni -
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The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
by Hallie Rubenhold
The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019, recommended by Stig Abell
The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019, recommended by Stig Abell
Every year, the Baillie Gifford Prize judges seek to identify the very best nonfiction books published in the last year. Here, the chair of this year’s judging panel Stig Abell talks us through the 2019 shortlist: a thrilling line-up of books that are as notable for their literary prowess as for their weight and significance.
The best books on Strong Women in Bad Marriages, recommended by Nancy Goldstone
The author of The Maid and the Queen takes us on an enjoyable ride through European history, looking at well-connected women who outwitted their husbands or asserted their independence.
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The Living Mountain
by Nan Shepherd -
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The Water Cure
by Sophie Mackintosh -
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The Dark Stuff: Stories from the Peatlands
by Donald S Murray -
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Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction
by Chris D Thomas -
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Kings of the Yukon: An Alaskan River Journey
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Crudo: A Novel
by Olivia Laing
Editors’ Picks: Highlights From a Year in Reading, recommended by Cal Flyn
Editors’ Picks: Highlights From a Year in Reading, recommended by Cal Flyn
Author, journalist and Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn looks back on her favourite books read this year.
The Best of Nature Writing 2019, recommended by Charles Foster
What do we talk about when we talk about nature? Almost everything, says the academic and bestselling author of Being a Beast, Charles Foster. Here he selects five of the best works of nature writing in 2019; books that seek to connect us more deeply with the non-human world.
Adam Gopnik on his Favourite Essay Collections
What makes a great essayist? Who had it, who didn’t? And whose work left the biggest mark on the New Yorker? Longtime writer for the magazine, Adam Gopnik, picks out five masters of the craft
Unusual Histories, recommended by Geoff Dyer
The author of But Beautiful and Zona tells us about different ways of writing history, and gives us five examples where innovative or experimental approaches have paid off.
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The Islamic Enlightenment: The Struggle Between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times
by Christopher de Bellaigue -
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How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed Aids
by David France -
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Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe
by Kapka Kassabova -
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An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic
by Daniel Mendelsohn -
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To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death
by Mark O'Connell -
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Belonging: The Story of the Jews 1492–1900
by Simon Schama
Best Nonfiction Books of 2017, recommended by Peter Bazalgette
Best Nonfiction Books of 2017, recommended by Peter Bazalgette
It’s hard to choose the very best nonfiction books of 2017, but the Baillie Gifford Prize aims to do just that. The chair of this year’s judging panel, Peter Bazalgette, talks us through the six fabulous books that made the shortlist.
The Best Literary Biographies, recommended by Lyndall Gordon
The inner life is a mystery but the best biographies expose the hidden kernel of a person, says literary biographer and academic, Lyndall Gordon. She picks five books that push the boundaries of the genre.
The best books on First-Person Narratives, recommended by William Fiennes
Writing in the first person doesn’t have to be inward-looking or egotistical, says the author of The Snow Geese. He tells us about his favourite autobiographical works that use the first person to look out into the world
The best books on Chinese Life Stories, recommended by Jeffrey Wasserstrom
Historian and Sinologist Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor’s Professor, History at UC Irvine, says that to get a real sense of China you need to focus on individuals and their stories. Here he chooses five books that draw on the country’s long tradition of biographical writing.
Alain de Botton recommends the best books of Illuminating Essays
The essay format allows the author to develop ideas but add a personal touch, says the popular philosopher Alain de Botton. Here, he chooses his favourite essay collections
Calvin Trillin recommends the best Memoirs
The American journalist and humorist, Calvin Trillin, talks us through his own favourite memoirs.
The Best Books About Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, recommended by Michael Nicholson
Russian literature specialist Michael Nicholson, Emeritus Fellow at University College, Oxford, talks us through the best books to learn more about the great Soviet dissident and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Georgina Godwin on Memoirs of Zimbabwe
Via five engrossing memoirs, the Zimbabwe-born journalist Georgina Godwin talks wistfully about her country; amongst the older generation, she says, there is a feeling that Rhodesia was sold down the river by Britain and things needn’t have turned out the way they did.