Sophie Roell

From a police procedural set in World War II Berlin to a man pushing his in-laws off a wall in Ningbo, the variety of settings for crime fiction continue to provide a lot of opportunities for armchair travel. Our editor, Sophie Roell, an avid reader of crime novels, picks out some of her favourites of 2023. Read more fiction recommendations on Five Books

As summer collapses into fall across the northern hemisphere, Five Books editor Sophie Roell takes a look at the nonfiction books that have been published over the last three months. Reading serious nonfiction books remains the easiest way to get up to speed on not only things you’re already interested in, but lots of things you didn’t know you didn’t know.

Throughout the year, as new books are published and the shortlists for prizes are announced, we keep an eye on the mysteries we think might be gripping or fun to read. Here’s our list of the best mysteries of 2023, put together by Five Books editor, Sophie Roell.

If you haven't read any historical fiction by Robert Graves (1895-1985) yet, you're in for a treat, says Five Books editor Sophie Roell. She introduces the books by Robert Graves recommended on Five Books, from his novels set in ancient Rome and England during the civil wars to his memoir of World War I and retellings of the Greek myths.

As high summer hits the northern hemisphere, Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books, takes a look at the many nonfiction books published over the last three months. With so many books coming out that are both readable and written by people who know what they’re talking about, reading remains one of the most enjoyable ways to make sense of the world around us.

“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.

As 2023 gets underway, Five Books editor Sophie Roell looks at some of the interesting nonfiction books coming out in the early months of the year (January-March).

Since the early stories of the 18th and 19th centuries, crime fiction has been an incredibly popular and enduring genre, the investigation of murder somehow capturing the imagination of millions of readers around the globe. Here, Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books, uses strict but simple criteria to pick out the best classic crime fiction, from the Victorian age through to the 1950s.

In telling stories of lives that are often very different from our own and yet connected to us by our common humanity, biographies are some of the most compelling nonfiction books around. Five Books editor Sophie Roell rounds up some of the biographies that have won or been shortlisted for prizes in 2022.

It’s that time of year when there are dozens of the best-of-the-year lists. Which books are worth reading? One way of narrowing it down is by looking at the various awards that celebrate books across a range of nonfiction categories. Five Books editor Sophie Roell does a roundup of nonfiction books that won prizes in 2022.