Books by Barbara Demick
Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town
by Barbara Demick
***Longlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction***
Nothing to Envy
by Barbara Demick
🏆 Winner of the 2010 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Winner of Winners Prize, which aims to pick out the best nonfiction book of the past 25 years
“This is probably my favourite work of narrative nonfiction ever. It’s such an amazing book. She’s written about life in North Korea, which is one of the most difficult to access, closed regimes in the world, and she’s done it through very, very detailed interviews with North Korean defectors, mainly in South Korea, where she was based at the time, working as a foreign correspondent. It’s so compelling. It reads like a novel, a real page turner.” Read more...
The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books
Samira Shackle, Journalist
Interviews where books by Barbara Demick were recommended
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1
Peacemakers: Six Months That Changed the World
by Margaret MacMillan -
2
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
by James Shapiro -
3
Nothing to Envy
by Barbara Demick -
4
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
by Patrick Radden Keefe -
5
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest
by Wade Davis -
6
One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time
by Craig Brown
The Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners, recommended by Sophie Roell
The Best Nonfiction of the Past Quarter Century: The Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners, recommended by Sophie Roell
“All the best stories are true” runs the tagline of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, the UK’s pre-eminent nonfiction book award. This year, to celebrate the prize’s 25th birthday, a panel of judges picked out books for a winner of winners award, making for an excellent collection of nonfiction books from the last quarter of a century, as Five Books editor Sophie Roell explains.
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1
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
by Anna Funder -
2
Nothing to Envy
by Barbara Demick -
3
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
by Katherine Boo -
4
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
by Patrick Radden Keefe -
5
City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp
by Ben Rawlence
The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books, recommended by Samira Shackle
The Best Narrative Nonfiction Books, recommended by Samira Shackle
Narrative nonfiction is a style of writing that takes the facts and dramatises them to create novelistic retellings of real life events. Samira Shackle, author of Karachi Vice, a book that offers vivid insight into the lives of five of the city’s residents, recommends five books that have inspired her—and explains how a writer might begin to carve ‘plot’ and ‘characters’ from reams of research material.
The best books on North Korea, recommended by Hyeonseo Lee
Kim Jong-un’s posturing over nuclear weapons is a distraction from more pressing concerns: the extreme poverty and disenfranchisement of his people, says North Korean defector Hyeonseo Lee. She chooses five books for understanding the hermit kingdom.
