Dominic Sandbrook

Rules for Literary Survival

Daniel Beer

All Hearts Were Chilled

Leningrad: Tragedy of a City Under Siege, 1941–44

By Anna Reid

Timothy Brook

Trading Places

1493: How Europe’s Discovery of the Americas Revolutionized Trade, Ecology and Life on Earth

By Charles C Mann

Jerry Brotton

The Heirs of Lucretius

The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began

By Stephen Greenblatt

Eric Ives

Not So Gloriana?

The Elizabethans

By A N Wilson

Allan Massie

Painting the Globe Tartan

To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland’s Global Diaspora, 1750–2010

By T M Devine

Ruth Scurr

After Such Knowledge

Wicked Company: Freethinkers and Friendship in Pre-Revolutionary Paris

By Philipp Blom

Stephen Dorril

Our Men In Las Palmas

Franco’s Friends: How British Intelligence Helped Bring Franco to Power in Spain

By Peter Day

Piers Brendon

What Came After

Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World

By Kwasi Kwarteng

Leslie Mitchell

Much Misunderstood

Castlereagh: From Enlightenment to Tyranny

By John Bew

Jay Parini

No Fiesta

Hemingway’s Second War: Bearing Witness to the Spanish Civil War

By Alex Vernon

Peter Jones

Infamy, Infamy

The Crimes of Elagabalus: The Life and Legacy of Rome’s Decadent Boy Emperor

By Martijn Icks

David Bodanis

A Beautiful Mind

The Genius in My Basement: The Biography of a Happy Man

By Alexander Masters

Sara Wheeler

Going Down With The Ship

How to Survive the Titanic, or The Sinking of J Bruce Ismay

By Frances Wilson

John Gray

Flies in the Web

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You

By Eli Pariser

Joan Smith

Who Pays?

Free Ride: How the Internet is Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business can Fight Back

By Robert Levine

John Sweeney

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth

DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You

By Misha Glenny

David Pryce-Jones

Troubles in the Levant

A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East

By James Barr

Alexander Maitland

Into Africa

Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure

By Tim Jeal

Frances Spalding

Adventures In Dreamland

The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination

By Fiona MacCarthy

Jonathan Keates

Unlucky Voice

The Castrato and His Wife

By Helen Berry

Peyton Skipwith

Dreamer in Cretan Landscape

John Craxton

By Ian Collins

Stephen Amidon

Heat of the Moment

Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout

By Philip Connors

Tom Fort

Ecological Wrecking Balls

Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World’s Greatest Wildlife Rescue

By William Stolzenburg

Malise Ruthven

Lifting the Veil

A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America

By Leila Ahmed

Michael Burleigh

Was It Worth It All?

The 9/11 Wars

By Jason Burke

Francis Wheen

Passing the Buck

Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People

By Charlie Campbell

Anthony Daniels

Viral Theories

The Origins of AIDS

By Jacques Pepin

Frederic Raphael

Speaking In Tongues

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything

By David Bellos

Alexander Waugh

Spheres of Influence

A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionised the Cosmos

By Dava Sobel

Diana Athill

Purple Prose

Indigo: In Search of the Colour That Seduced the World

By Catherine E McKinley

Katharine Whitehorn

Taking Refuge

This Way to the Revolution: A Memoir

By Erin Pizzey

Ursula K Le Guin

Towards Darkness

Ragnarök: The End of the Gods

By A S Byatt

Jonathan Beckman

O Brother

The Sisters Brothers

By Patrick deWitt

Paul Bailey

Romanian Holiday

The Last Hundred Days

By Patrick McGuinness

Andrew Lycett

The Adventure of the Concealed Manuscript

The Narrative of John Smith

By Arthur Conan Doyle

Jonathan Barnes

Jonathan Barnes on Five First Novels

• Stephen Kelman, 
• Yvette Edwards, 
• Anna Funder, 
• Helen Gordon, 
• Teju Cole

Tom Williams

Cabinet of Curiosities

A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In

By Magnus Mills

David Annand

Hell Hath No Fury

Damned

By Chuck Palahniuk

John Boyne

Croker’s Lament

Shooting Angels

By Christopher Hope

Emma Hogan

Poetic Licence

Childish Loves

By Benjamin Markovits