Sophie Roell, Editor

While it’s easy to dismiss celebrity memoirs as offering cheap, voyeuristic thrills into the lives of famous people we like the look of, when they’re done well, they can give insight into challenges we all grapple with as human beings. They can also be very funny. Sharon Marcus, professor of literature at Columbia University and author of The Drama of Celebrity, recommends the best new celebrity memoirs.

Once upon a time, someone told a story that would be told for hundreds of years, making its way into books and, eventually, into movies, where the tale would again be told afresh multiple times. Who was that someone? Nonfiction writer Nicholas Jubber introduces some of the original tellers of fairy tales, as well as some of his favourite 20th-century interpreters.

Many visitors to Sri Lanka have been beguiled by its charms, from its hill towns to its beaches, its ancient temples to its friendly people. And yet, for a quarter of a century until 2009, it was torn apart by a brutal civil war. Here, Sri Lanka-born political economist Razeen Sally, author of Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Land, recommends the best books to get a better understanding of Sri Lanka and the complexities that make the country so fascinating to visit and read about.

Philanthropy is everywhere—and that means we need an informed debate about what it is and how to do it better, rather than resorting to populist critiques of donors and their motives, argues Beth Breeze, Director of the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent. Here she recommends five books to help encourage a more careful and nuanced look at philanthropy, an activity that affects all of us every day but is particularly critical in the lives of the most vulnerable.

Whether you want to read the entire history of China in 250 pages or find out what’s going on right now in Xinjiang, enjoy a new translation of a 16th-century fantasy novel or delve into contemporary short stories, 2021 has been another good year for books about China. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor’s Professor of History at UC Irvine, recommends his favourite China books of 2021.

In 2021, as in previous years, AudioFile magazine picks out the very best audiobooks of the year, books that make great listening and where outstanding narration brings additional pleasure over and above reading the book in print with your eyes. Here, AudioFile editor and founder Robin Whitten picks out the best audiobooks of 2021 for us—out of the 2,300 books that she and her team listened to and reviewed.

Every year the Financial Times’s management editor, Andrew Hill, helps organize its ‘Business Book of the Year’ award, which celebrates outstanding books relating to business in the broadest sense. Here, he talks us through the 2021 shortlist, six books that will draw you in and open your eyes to how events happening in the world of business affect all of us–sometimes in very profound ways.

Every year the judges of the Baillie Gifford Prize pick out the very best nonfiction books, the shortlist they come up with a brilliant way to find gripping books to immerse yourself in. Here cultural historian Kathryn Hughes, one of this year’s judges, talks us through the six books they chose for the 2021 shortlist, books that will draw you in, whatever the subject.

“We are connected to the spirit and it’s an active connection. It’s not somewhere that’s only in the afterlife, it’s here in the present as well. That, I think, is endemic across all African cultures and traditions,” says Zimbabwean novelist and poet Blessing Musariri. Here she recommends some of the best African novels, books that had a big personal impact and have stayed with her.

When we think of nationalism, we tend to think of its extreme varieties. In fact, it’s so ubiquitous in our daily lives that we rarely even notice it, says political theorist and former Israeli politician Yael Tamir. Here, she recommends books to help us better understand nationalism in all its forms and why one ignores its power at one’s peril.