Cal Flyn, Deputy Editor

We always look forward to the shortlists for the National Book Critics Awards, on the basis that literary critics are probably the best read people out there. Here, we asked the garlanded critic Mary Ann Gwinn to talk us through the five biographies highlighted in 2025.

The last year has been one of the best for autobiography and memoir in recent memory, says May-lee Chai, chair of the judging committee for the National Book Critic Circle Prize for Autobiography. Their 2025 shortlist includes a posthumous memoir by Alexei Navalny, former leader of the opposition in Russia, and a travel memoir with a surrealist twist.

You may be familiar with the work of the great Argentinian authors Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, but how about the country’s crop of contemporary writers? We asked Claudia Piñeiro, author of many bestselling and critically acclaimed books, to introduce us to five unmissable 21st-century Argentinian novels.

Publishing moves fast, and we tend to forget books almost as fast as they arrive. We spoke to Rebeka Russell of Manderley Press—a heritage publisher that specialises in reviving lost works—about five forgotten classic books that are ripe for rediscovery.

Don’t panic if your child is diagnosed with autism, says Syreeta Brown—author of the new parenting memoir Bigger Than the Moon. Here she selects five books that helped her understand her own daughter’s autism, and will help your family adapt.

There are times in life when it pays to be dynamic, relentless, determined. But we also need to learn when to cut ourselves and our friends, family, and colleagues some slack, argues clinical psychologist Dr Ross White. Here, he recommends five books that help us reflect on being kinder to ourselves and others.

Though culture, society, and technology were very different in the ancient world, human minds and relationships still functioned in very similar ways, argues Ferdia Lennon—author of Glorious Exploits, set during the Peloponnesian War. Here he recommends five novels set during the Classical era that serve, in their own ways, as mirrors of the present.

Our teenage years are often fraught with emotion, experimentation and the crises that arise with the coming of age. Here, the novelist and memoirist Tyler Wetherall discusses the memoirs of girlhood in which she found echoes of her own experiences—and perhaps you will too.

The boundaries between biography, history and news are very porous, says Elizabeth Taylor—chair of the judging panel for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Here, she introduces us to the five-strong shortlist of books, all of which, she notes, made headlines or “contributed to a substantial revision of history.”

The history of Africa is rich with stories of mighty empires, canny politicking, and complex belief systems. But too often history books written by outsiders focus solely on its colonial past. It’s time to read more books about African history by African writers, argues the broadcaster Zeinab Badawi—whose African History of Africa was recently shortlisted for a Nero Book Award. Here, she recommends five brilliant books to get you started.