Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

Browse all our 'best books of 2025' lists (both fiction and nonfiction): fivebooks.com/books/best-b...

"It is a historical novel because its plot spans centuries. It’s a sort of pseudo-biography of a young Elizabethan-era nobleman who is mysteriously immortal and also mysteriously transforms into a woman partway through the book."—Flora Carr, historical novelist fivebooks.com/book/orlando...

NEW You may know Medieval Europe as an age of kings and queens, castles and chivalric knights, but historians often neglect the events of the far north and east, explains Thomas Williams. He recommends five books that will upend your understanding of the Middle Ages fivebooks.com/best-books/m...

“I think the Middle Ages are quite misunderstood by a lot of people” fivebooks.com/best-books/m...

The best nonfiction books: our collection of expert-recommended books, as chosen by prestigious nonfiction prizes for their readability and importance. fivebooks.com/category/non...

“Typically, we’re not as good as we think we should be” fivebooks.com/best-books/h...

"If you want to read literature that sets out to create a holding ground for raw human material—for human struggles, difficulties, and celebrations—then you should read George Eliot, argues literary scholar Philip Davis. fivebooks.com/best-books/g...

"You might have thought that this meant that Elizabethan art was completely derivative, but it wasn’t" fivebooks.com/best-books/m...

NEW: "In each of these books, you will find a character that is inspiring—someone who spurs you to go out and see more of the world" Filmmaker and prize judge Alex Bescoby on the shortlist of the 2026 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. fivebooks.com/best-books/a...

The best thriller books of all kinds: the best crime thrillers, the best whodunnits and spy thrillers, as recommended by thriller authors themselves. fivebooks.com/category/fic...

“Celebrities are no doubt connected with what they have done. They are also defined by the way in which they are seen and what they are made into by their audiences.” fivebooks.com/best-books/f...

"I do think that the influence of AI and automated book production will get more substantial." fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

The best of fiction: reading lists compiled and discussed by some of the most eminent authors, poets and critics around fivebooks.com/category/fic...

Nonfiction on Five Books: fivebooks.com/category/non...

NEW INTERVIEW ON OUR HOMEPAGE: "All Shakespeare’s comedies are vulnerable to a tragic turn." The best Shakespeare comedies, recommended by Heather Hirschfeld of @UTKnoxville @ardenpublisher.bsky.social fivebooks.com/best-books/s...

The End of Everything by M. John Harrison ⭐ Shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize "This mysterious, haunting novel is set in post-apocalyptic Britain after an alien invasion, where no one knows what’s going on."—Rebecca Liu, Booker Prize judge fivebooks.com/book/the-end...

The best books on Brexit, as recommended in expert interviews, and spanning multiple genres: novels, political science, satire and more. fivebooks.com/category/wor...

"This is a collection of fragments of Sappho’s poems. They are so beautiful, I would recommend them to anyone"—Bettany Hughes, historian fivebooks.com/book/not-win...

We have a very wide range of interviews on food and cooking, covering everything from Cakes, to eating meat, food production and food psychology. fivebooks.com/category/foo...

“One of the things that’s intriguing about Chinese philosophy is the focus on the mundane ways we live our everyday lives and how that can have huge effects over time.” fivebooks.com/best-books/c...

“The culture of policing in the United States has always been based on violence.” fivebooks.com/best-books/j...

"Haidt has a formula for happiness: Genetics + conditions + choices. This is a formula for a realistic approach to trying to achieve the good life...He uses a lot of Eastern as well as Western philosophy."—Emrys Westacott, philosopher fivebooks.com/book/happine...

Best books on Greece, from ancient times to modern. Books to help you understand ancient Greece and its modern counterpart and the relationship between them fivebooks.com/category/wor...

"Trust is built up on an accumulation of really prosaic stuff." fivebooks.com/best-books/s...

“Beginning in 1494, Italy became the battleground of Europe” fivebooks.com/best-books/r...

"It’s very easy to look for a great liberation hero. But this book shows a deeply flawed man who clearly didn’t make the lives of those who became free all that much freer..."—Diarmaid MacCulloch, historian and prize judge fivebooks.com/book/black-s...

“Abstract maths and physical models are nice in theory, but they have to be used to build things and make our lives better” fivebooks.com/best-books/e...

NEW @RoyalSociety.org celebrates the best new popular science writing every year via the prestigious Trivedi Science Book Prize. Professor Michael Benton, the eminent palaeontologist and chair of the 2026 judges, told us about their six-book shortlist fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

"A historical curator in modern-day Britain is commissioned by a former palace to recreate past scenes of glory...You can really feel the claustrophobia, the judgment and the swirling ambitions of the court"—Rebecca Liu, Booker Prize judge fivebooks.com/book/may-we-...

Funny books are a great read. From the witty to the absurd, satire to comic books, we have humor books guaranteed to lift your spirits. fivebooks.com/category/fic...

"This tempestuous psychological thriller follows Rosie. Unlucky in love and suffering increasingly from ill health, she undergoes a transplant—after which she develops an obsession with the husband of the dead donor."—Five Books editors fivebooks.com/book/cross-m...

"My favourite book of all time is The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. It’s the book that started my career. I knew nothing about Southeast Asia." fivebooks.com/best-books/a...

Biographies for kids, from beautiful stories about real people for preschoolers to inspirational life stories for 8-12 year olds fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

The best books written by winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, as picked by experts on Five Books in interviews on an array of subjects fivebooks.com/category/fic...

“I love being able to walk around knowing that when I look up at the sky, I’m really looking up into an endless universe that we’ve only begun to explore.” fivebooks.com/best-books/s...

“You can get a picture book by a high-profile person, teaching traditional financial topics for a young child to understand” fivebooks.com/best-books/e...

"How do you write about contemporary American politics without reproducing the mania and fear that makes things feel so violently hopeless and deranged?" fivebooks.com/best-books/n...

"We think of Brazil as the greatest ever World Cup side but back then they still hadn’t ever won it. Everyone was so confident they would win in 1950 that the newspapers anointed them champions the day before the final. They lost 2-1." fivebooks.com/best-books/s...

The best books to read on the revolutions of the past: the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and more fivebooks.com/category/his...

"One thing I often recommend to people who are interested in dipping their toe in is to jump to the end of the first volume." Our guide to the best books by Marcel Proust (1871–1922) on Five Books. fivebooks.com/best-books/m...

The best books written by winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, as picked by experts on Five Books in interviews on an array of subjects fivebooks.com/category/fic...

#OTD in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis started as pictures confirmed the presence of Soviet missiles less than 100 miles from the US coast. "Essence of Decision" was recommended by political scientist Robert E. Goodin as one of his top political science books. fivebooks.com/book/essence...

"Everybody but a few mad people recognises that climate change is a great threat to humanity’s future, but the governmental process to address it has totally failed." fivebooks.com/best-books/l...

The best nonfiction books: our collection of expert-recommended books, as chosen by prestigious nonfiction prizes for their readability and importance. fivebooks.com/category/non...

“Climate adaptation is synonymous with systems change” fivebooks.com/best-books/c...

Immerse yourself in another world with our fantasy book recommendations. fivebooks.com/category/fic...

"Most of the great interpreters did not end their writing about the revolution and say, “Oh yeah! I really figured it out.”" fivebooks.com/best-books/f...