Guest Newsletter: Five Books - Nonfiction and Fantasy


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 Nonfiction Books: The 2025 British Academy Book Prize

To be shortlisted for the annual British Academy Book Prize, books have to be both rigorously researched and highly readable. Historian Rebecca Earle, chair of the 2025 judging panel, talks us through the books that made this year's shortlist, from an environmental history that opens with Genghis Khan and the Mongol expansion to a 'musical detective story' that investigates the sounds made by our ancestors down the millennia. Read more


The Best Fantasy Series

A fantasy series allows us to explore the complexities of characters, the far corners of their worlds, and the consequences of their actions - for best-selling author Samantha Shannon, this is "a privilege, and such a joy." Here she recommends five rich, sustained fantasy worlds, featuring old gods, spymasters, witches, plagues, and the land of the dead - and above all, characters who keep surprising us. Read more


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