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
-
1
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (editors) -
2
Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II
by Daniel James Brown -
3
The Alexandria Quartet
by Lawrence Durrell -
4
Eartha & Kitt: A Daughter's Love Story in Black and White
by Kitt Shapiro (with Patricia Weiss Levy) -
5
The Night Gate
by Peter May
The Best Audiobooks of 2021, recommended by Robin Whitten
The Best Audiobooks of 2021, recommended by Robin Whitten
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.
-
1
The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations
by Robert Livingston -
2
The World For Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources
by Jack Farchy & Javier Blas -
3
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
by Patrick Radden Keefe -
4
The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet
by Michael E Mann -
5
This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race
by Nicole Perlroth -
6
The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World
by Adrian Wooldridge
The Best Business Books: the 2021 FT & McKinsey Book Award, recommended by Andrew Hill
The Best Business Books: the 2021 FT & McKinsey Book Award, recommended by Andrew Hill
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.
-
1
Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
by Harald Jähner & Shaun Whiteside (translator) -
2
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
by Patrick Radden Keefe -
3
Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape
by Cal Flyn -
4
Things I Have Withheld
by Kei Miller -
5
Fall: The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron
by John Preston -
6
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History
by Lea Ypi
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist, recommended by Kathryn Hughes
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist, recommended by Kathryn Hughes
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.
The Best African Novels, recommended by Blessing Musariri
“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.
The best books on Nationalism, recommended by Yael Tamir
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.
-
1
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World
by Katharine Hayhoe -
2
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
by Elizabeth Kolbert -
3
Owls of the Eastern Ice
by Jonathan Slaght -
4
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
by Andreas Malm -
5
Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future
by Saul Griffith
The Best Climate Books of 2021, recommended by Sarah Dry
The Best Climate Books of 2021, recommended by Sarah Dry
From the power of the individual to effect change to the large-scale government interventions needed, are we close to a tipping point in our efforts to combat climate change? Just in time to get up to speed for COP26, here’s a selection of the best climate books of 2021, selected for us by historian of climate science, Sarah Dry.
The Best Detective Fiction, recommended by Jeffrey Archer
With so many works of detective fiction coming out each year, which books stand the test of time? Here, bestselling British author Jeffrey Archer talks us through some of his favourites, the books he found completely unputdownable and made him want to read everything the author had written.
-
1
Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move
by Nanjala Nyabola -
2
The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
by Sonia Shah -
3
Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
by Mae M. Ngai -
4
Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism
by Harsha Walia -
5
Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda
by Jean Guerrero
The best books on Immigration and Race, recommended by Reece Jones
The best books on Immigration and Race, recommended by Reece Jones
In a series of books, Reece Jones, Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawaii, has explored the impact of borders on our lives. In his latest book, White Borders, he delves into the history of immigration and race in the United States, and explains the connection between the two. Here, he recommends the best books he’s read on the topic and explains why he’s not optimistic about the future.
The best books on Mumbai, recommended by Saumya Roy
It’s one of the most densely populated, vibrant cities in the world, combining enormous wealth with dire poverty. It’s India’s financial and commercial capital, home to the glamour of Bollywood and the movie industry, but it has somehow managed to defy modernization. Saumya Roy, journalist, author and co-founder of a nonprofit that made loans to the city’s poorest entrepreneurs, recommends her favourite books on Mumbai (aka Bombay).
-
1
Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape
by Cal Flyn -
2
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
by Eddie S Glaude Jr -
3
Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities
by Mahmood Mamdani -
4
Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire
by Sujit Sivasundaram
The 2021 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, recommended by Patrick Wright
The 2021 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, recommended by Patrick Wright
Through careful research and compelling argument, the books shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding cast light on globally significant problems, says Patrick Wright, chair of the 2021 jury and Emeritus Professor of Literature, History and Politics at King’s College London. Here he talks us through the books that made the 2021 shortlist, works of nonfiction that “speak directly to the urgent challenges of the times in which we live”.