Cal Flyn, Deputy Editor

The Women’s Prize was set up to highlight the very best of women’s writing, whatever their subject matter. We spoke to Salma El-Wardany, one of this year’s judges, about this year’s winner—Virginia Evan’s heartwarming epistolary novel The Correspondent—plus the five books that made it onto their fiction shortlist, all skillfully told novels that should appeal to a wide audience.

Environmental history is the study of the relationship between society and the natural world—both in terms of human impacts on the environment, and the constraints placed upon cultures by the landscapes they live in. Here, John R. McNeill, a pioneer of the field, recommends five of the best environmental history books with ambition, engaging prose, and heft.

The best biographies combine original research with accessible writing and a strong narrative drive, explains the historian Roy Foster, chair of the judges for the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. Here, he introduces us to the five “extraordinarily accomplished” books on their 2026 shortlist, including a reassessment of Austrian empress Maria Theresa and a portrait of the molecular biologist Francis Crick in the swinging 1960s.

Translated fiction “expands not only our literary horizons, but also our moral and emotional imaginations,” explains Troy Onyango—the writer, editor and judge for the 2026 International Booker Prize. He introduced us to the six novels that made the shortlist, including this year’s “formally inventive” winner and a “razor sharp” book about a “mediocre witch.”

A great biography should be a readable and deeply-researched story of a person whose life and times can teach us something of our own, explains Andrea Wulf—author of a highly anticipated new biography of the explorer George Forster. Here, she recommends five biographies about 18th-century figures, including a landmark account of the life of Goethe and a Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biography.

Every year, the judges for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction make a shortlist of the best new historical novels published over the previous twelve months. We spoke to Katharine Grant, prize judge and highly acclaimed author, about the five books that made the 2026 shortlist—from a “haunting and haunted” tale of triple murder on a Scottish island to a “gloriously told” reimagining of real-life intrigue during England’s Wars of the Roses.

Tennessee Williams was a giant of 20th-century American theatre, explains literary scholar Ahmed Honeini, whose new book unpicks Williams’ preoccupation with domestic family drama. Here, Honeini selects five key books—landmark plays, personal memoirs and an influential biography—that illuminate the life of the great playwright.

The figure of the witch recurs across cultures and time periods, and remains a source of fascination even today. Here, Margaret Meyer—author of The Witching Tide, an acclaimed historical novel inspired by a notorious English witch hunt—recommends five brilliant fiction books about witches, and explains how the witch serves as a symbol of female power in a patriarchal society.

The modern environmental movement emerged in the post-war world after humanity’s self-destructive capacity became undeniable, argues the veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce. Here, he highlights five landmark environmental books that have marked a shift in environmental thought.

We asked Grace Talusan—the critic, memoirist, and chair of the National Book Critics Circle autobiography committee—to talk us through their shortlist of the best new memoirs: from the “novelistic” winning book by Arundhati Roy to journalist Beth Macy’s hard-hitting examination of her struggling Ohio hometown.