Guest Newsletter: Five Books

Five Books features in-depth author interviews recommending five books on a theme. You can read more interviews on the site, or sign up for the newsletter.

The Best African Writing

There's a lot of historical fiction being written as Africa tries to come to terms with its history, says South African novelist Mphuthumi Ntabeni. He recommends five outstanding books of African writing, including novels that paved the way for new genres, a book of short stories from across Africa, and a work of nonfiction that he recommends to "anybody who wants to know what is happening in South Africa."

The Best Business Books of 2023: the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award

If you like nonfiction books that will get you up to speed with what's going on in the world, the Financial Times annual book prize is a great place to start. If you run a business, one or two useful books also feature. Andrew Hill, the newspaper's senior business writer, talks us through the books that made the 2023 shortlist, from cobalt extraction in the Congo to how to manage the AI genie that's out of the bottle and coming towards us at speed.

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