Cal Flyn, Deputy Editor

In times of political or personal turmoil, there’s a tendency to seek solace in stripping back life to its bare essentials. Minimalist thought is threaded through Stoicism and Zen Buddhism; absence and space became major preoccupations of 1960s US art. Kyle Chayka, the art critic and author of The Longing for Less, recommends five books on the philosophy that underpins the present fad for minimalist self-help.

Three award-winning US high school psychology teachers—authors of the website Books for Psychology Class—share their recommendations of the best psychology books for teenagers, students and their teachers, and reflect on why storytelling is a key aspect of the art of teaching.

Ken Liu, the multi-award winning author of The Paper Menagerie, explains how using elements of fantasy and science fiction can help us examine deep truths about the human condition, as he recommends the best of contemporary speculative fiction.

Writing about nature and landscape need not be stuffy or traditionalist. Jessica J Lee, editor of The Willowherb Review—a literary journal dedicated to diversity in nature writing—recommends five books that offer a breath of fresh air: encompassing the whole of life, from sex in the woods to birding in the city.

How do you find the perfect subject for a biography? “Pick a real bitch, or real bastard, and make sure they're dead,” a famous biographer once told Elizabeth Taylor. The author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee talks us through the books that made their 2020 shortlist.

Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn rounds up the most hotly anticipated new novels of early 2020, including the final instalment in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy and new work from the authors of Dept. of Speculation, Eileen and Station Eleven.

From a brave account by the Stanford rape case survivor Chanel Miller to New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow’s gripping tale of investigating the Harvey Weinstein scandal, it’s been a golden year for autobiography. Veteran critic Mark Athitakis talks us through the memoirs that made this year’s National Book Critics Circle autobiography shortlist.

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.

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.

It’s been a great year for crime fiction – with soaring sales and global bestsellers emerging from writers all over the world. Crime writing is rightly in the ascendancy, says the celebrated Scottish novelist Val McDermid as she selects the best crime fiction of 2019: five books that stand as great novels in their own right.