Interviewer

Sophie Roell, Editor
Sophie Roell is co-founder and editor of Five Books. Previously she worked as a journalist in London, Beijing, Shanghai and New York. As a financial reporter, she covered the early years of the Chinese stock markets and the transition of its economy after Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 tour of the south. She wrote about the North Korean economy from Pyongyang in 2001.
She studied modern history as an undergraduate at Oxford and, after travelling the world as a reporter for five years, took the Master’s in Regional Studies-East Asia at Harvard University. This wonderfully flexible program insists on at least one East Asian language and some courses on East Asia, but leaves plenty of room to roam about the university taking courses on random subjects. Five Books, set up in 2009, is an attempt to continue that experience.
Below, you’ll find Sophie’s Five Books interviews with experts. Her own recommendations, normally nonfiction, are here. She also reads a lot of mysteries.
Interviews by Sophie Roell
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						                                                         1 The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s
 by Jason Burke
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						                                                         2 How to End a Story: Collected Diaries
 by Helen Garner
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						                                                         3 The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief
 by Richard Holmes
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						                                                         4 Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World
 by Justin Marozzi
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						                                                         5 Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe
 by Adam Weymouth
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						                                                         6 Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark
 by Frances Wilson
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist, recommended by Robbie Millen
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist, recommended by Robbie Millen
From the terrorists who came up with the idea of hijacking planes to get attention to a biography of the Scottish novelist Muriel Spark, the books in the running for this year’s Baillie Gifford Prize, as always, display a wonderful breadth. Robbie Millen, literary editor of the Times and chair of the 2025 judging panel, talks us through the shortlist of the UK’s most prestigious nonfiction book prize.
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						                                                         1 Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe
 by Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw
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						                                                         2 Light in the Darkness: Black Holes, the Universe, and Us
 by Heino Falcke
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						                                                         3 The Event Horizon as a Vanishing Point: a History of the First Image of a Black Hole Shadow from Observation
 by Emilie Skulberg
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						                                                         4 Inuyasha
 by Rumiko Takahashi
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						                                                         5 Black Holes and Uncle Albert
 by Russell Stannard
The best books on Black Holes, recommended by Lynn Gamwell
The best books on Black Holes, recommended by Lynn Gamwell
In the past five years, over 30 books have been published on black holes for a popular audience—testimony to our enduring fascination with these areas of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. Lynn Gamwell, author of Conjuring the Void—a beautiful book that looks at both scientific and artistic images of black holes—talks us through five of her favourites, including a PhD thesis that has not yet been published as a book.
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						                                                         1 The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years
 by Sunil Amrith
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						                                                         2 The Baton and the Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin
 by Lucy Ash
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						                                                         3 The Golden Road
 by William Dalrymple
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						                                                         4 Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance
 by Bronwen Everill
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						                                                         5 Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women's Health
 by Sophie Harman
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						                                                         6 Sound Tracks: A Musical Detective Story
 by Graeme Lawson
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 British Academy Book Prize, recommended by Rebecca Earle
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 British Academy Book Prize, recommended by Rebecca Earle
To be shortlisted for the annual British Academy Book Prize, books have to be both rigorously researched and highly readable. Historian Rebecca Earle, chair of the 2025 judging panel, talks us through the books that made this year’s shortlist, from an environmental history that opens with Genghis Khan and the Mongol expansion to a ‘musical detective story’ that investigates the sounds made by our ancestors down the millennia.
The Best Adventure Novels: The 2025 Wilbur Smith Prize, recommended by Nathan Gray
Adventure means something different for everyone, says Nathan Gray, former fighter pilot and a judge for this year’s Wilbur Smith Prize for Adventure Writing. He talks us through the brilliant books that made the 2025 shortlist, and the journeys they took him on.
The Best Roman History Books, recommended by Ross King
To write The Shortest History of Ancient Rome, bestselling author Ross King went back to the insightful and often entertaining accounts Roman and Greek historians gave of the city’s past. He talks us through some of his favourites, from Polybius—who wrote during the Roman Republic’s heyday—to Cassius Dio, who penned his magnum opus as the Roman Empire was in its decline.
Books Robert Redford Starred In
We love books here at Five Books, and OK, we might be a bit snooty at times and insist that a book is always better than the movie based on it. And yet…there are many beloved books we wouldn’t have read if they hadn’t hit the big screen. In honour of Robert Redford (1936-2025), a list of some of the books recommended on our site that he starred in the film versions of. One of them changed my life.
The best books on The Soviet Union, recommended by Sheila Fitzpatrick
The Soviet Union was the world’s first communist country and lasted around seven decades. It played a key role in defeating Nazism in Europe and became a global superpower before collapsing unexpectedly in 1991. Sheila Fitzpatrick, a leading historian of the Soviet Union, recommends books that bring to life different aspects of it, from forced labour in Glavnoye Upravleniye LAGerey (GULAG) to the heady days of the Khrushchev thaw and including the memoir of Stalin’s beloved daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.
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						                                                         1 Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends
 by Lonnie Johnson
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						                                                         2 The Siege of Vienna: The Last Great Trial Between Cross & Crescent
 by John Stoye
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						                                                         3 Maria Theresa
 by Edward Crankshaw
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						                                                         4 Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World
 by Richard Cockett
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						                                                         5 The Man Without Qualities
 by Robert Musil
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						                                                         6 The Capuchin Crypt (aka The Emperor's Tomb)
 by Joseph Roth
The best books on Austria, recommended by Nicholas Parsons
The best books on Austria, recommended by Nicholas Parsons
Today, the Republic of Austria is a small country in Central Europe, but for centuries, it was the fulcrum of events going on in Europe, as the Habsburgs led the Holy Roman Empire—and later the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire—until it all fell apart after World War I. Nicholas Parsons, author of the excellent The Shortest History of Austria, introduces us to books and novels that bring to life the history of a political, intellectual, and cultural powerhouse.
The best books on Universal Basic Income, recommended by Matthew Johnson
Is basic income a viable policy that changes everything? Matthew Johnson, Professor of Public Policy at Northumbria University, and other members of the ‘Common Sense Policy Group’ think so. He introduces us to the political philosophy behind basic income, how it works, and some of its potential outcomes.
The best books on Modern Greek History, recommended by Yanni Kotsonis
If you’re heading to Greece this summer, it might be worth learning more about the modern history of the country you’re visiting. Yanni Kotsonis, a professor of history at NYU and author of The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism, recommends a variety of books to get you started, from a short history of Greece to a novel by one of the country’s greatest writers.























































