Two leading oenophiles choose their best wine books. Gin connoisseur Olivier Ward chooses his best books on that drink and Bianca Bosker, author of Cork Dork, talks about wine and drink in her best choices on the senses. fivebooks.com/category/foo...

#OTD 82 years ago, Operation Overlord was launched. Our collection of book recommendations about it: fivebooks.com/books/d-day/

“There are a lot of people who sincerely believe that the unexamined life is not worth living. The contrasting sentiment is that the unlived life is not worth examining.” fivebooks.com/best-books/v...

"If you look at history, you can find evidence of everything. You can find evidence of people who were vicious, manipulative and genocidal, and you can find people who dealt equitably and even-handedly with natives." fivebooks.com/best-books/n...

The best Shakespeare books and plays, recommended by eminent Shakespeare scholars including Emma Smith, James Shapiro, and Stanley Wells fivebooks.com/category/fic...

"I don’t think that you’re going to see stability in the Middle East until the Kurds have their own state, at least in Iraq, and perhaps also in Syria." fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

"When I was an editor, the consensus was that a good editor could improve a piece by 15%." fivebooks.com/best-books/e...

Thrillers are books that have a sense of urgency and are written to make the reader turn the pages. The best ones will keep you reading late into the night, as you can't wait to find out what happens next. fivebooks.com/category/fic...

"If we had not used DeGroot’s approach prior to the financial crisis, if instead of weighing down the results of the crisis and dividing by a hundred…things could have been better." fivebooks.com/best-books/g...

“Urban fantasy shares a lot of roots with both paranormal romance and detective fiction” fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

Our interviews and book recommendations pertaining to education cover a diverse range of factors influencing education such as: inequality, globalisation, economic development, gender and information. fivebooks.com/category/hea...

NEW: "It’s a bumper list this year, full of big-hitter names and innovative titles." A round-up of the sci-fi and fantasy books shortlisted for this year's Nebula Awards by our SFF editor, Sylvia Bishop: fivebooks.com/best-books/s...

"Al-Qaeda deliberately set out to kill and injure as many innocent people as possible without any warning." fivebooks.com/best-books/p...

NEW The best biographies combine original research with accessible writing and strong narrative drive, explains Prof Roy Foster, chair of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography judges. He introduced us to the five books on their 2026 shortlist: fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

"You can’t expect to have a lot of unemployed young men living with winner-loser exhortations to get rich and expect things to carry on as normal." fivebooks.com/best-books/d...

Whether you're looking for the best biographies of 2025, or outstanding works written decades or even centuries ago, we have some recommendations. fivebooks.com/category/bio...

"Both Beerbohm and Woolf are belle-lettrist sort of writers and they connect to that leisurely tradition." fivebooks.com/best-books/e...

"A bad picture book would say "this is an apple", a good one "this is not a pipe"" fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

The best science books, as recommended in our interviews with scientists and science writers. fivebooks.com/category/mat...

“I think Orwell, without ever having gone to the USSR, really did understand it from the outside brilliantly.” fivebooks.com/best-books/r...

"I suppose the reason parallel worlds fiction appeals to children is because the child is a bit like a lunatic in some way" fivebooks.com/best-books/j...

Are you interested in books about China? The best Australian novels? Are you a fan of Swedish crime fiction? Or is it American politics you'd like to know more about? Our 'world' category divides up all our interviews and book recommendations by geography. fivebooks.com/category/wor...

“It’s so easy to immerse a reader in a fantasy world if you’re able to present it in visuals” fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

“In my judgement, the measure of a speech is not merely the text or words, or even the person who delivers the speech, but the context of the speech.” fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

We've collected together some of our interviews recommending a range of classic books, from ancient stories to sci-fi—and from places around the world. fivebooks.com/category/fic...

"Sometimes we get books submitted that have great stories, but they are badly written. Sometimes there’s great writing, but a crap story. Sometimes they are simply not funny; we have no idea why they’ve been submitted." fivebooks.com/best-books/f...

"The Anabaptists now have the reputation of being the most pacifist people you could possibly meet." fivebooks.com/best-books/h...

The best psychology books combine scientific rigour with accessible writing. We turned to some of the most eminent psychologists working today for their book recommendations. fivebooks.com/category/psy...

NEW: Books about Zoroastrianism recommended by @arashzeini.com, specialist in pre-Islamic Iranian cultures and languages fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

"Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese and had the largest number of enslaved Africans that were transported to the Americas." fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

“Can you really reduce something as complex as love to the density of some neurotransmitter in a brain region.” fivebooks.com/best-books/s...

Welcome to our 'literary figures' section, where we collect interviews focused on particular authors with eminent scholars, biographers and writers. fivebooks.com/category/fic...

“The idea that concerns about death have a consequential influence on human affairs goes back to antiquity.” fivebooks.com/best-books/f...

“States of madness can arise from thoughts, feelings and processes that we can all identify with in some way” fivebooks.com/best-books/h...

The best Indian books, from Indian history, travel, geography, economics and leading figures in India such as Gandhi to Indian literature. fivebooks.com/category/wor...

NEW Must-read novels of summer 2026: five must-read books from Ben Lerner (@grantabooks), Maggie O’Farrell, Caro Claire Burke, Missouri Williams (@misery_williams) and @RosaRankinGee fivebooks.com/best-books/m...

NEW Must-read novels of summer 2026: five must-read books from Ben Lerner (@grantabooks), Maggie O’Farrell, Caro Claire Burke, Missouri Williams (@misery_williams) and @RosaRankinGee

“There’s enthusiasm…about Catalan fiction. It has the energy of the youth” fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

"For John of Salisbury and many of his peers, God was the highest authority: if the king was against the law of God, his assassination was justifiable." fivebooks.com/best-books/a...

Our interviews and book recommendations pertaining to education cover a diverse range of factors influencing education such as: inequality, globalisation, economic development, gender and information. fivebooks.com/category/hea...

“What does it mean to be true to yourself, if the self that you are is always shifting? That question launched Kierkegaard’s philosophical career” fivebooks.com/best-books/k...

"An awful lot of people will propose solutions to the problems of delivering these great big projects which work perfectly in the minds of a technocrat, but which just aren’t going to work politically." fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

Below, we’ve collected together all our books relating to world history themes, as well as all our interviews about the history of particular countries or regions. fivebooks.com/category/his...

"You can’t talk about migration in Britain without talking about Empire, because you can see how migration was shaped very, very obviously by the structures of Empire and decolonisation." fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

"There’s a pressure to tell at least two jokes in the first thirty seconds. You must prove very quickly that you’re funny." fivebooks.com/best-books/m...

While it remains up for debate whether happiness is a useful goal to strive for, few human beings, if asked, wouldn't agree that being happy is a good thing. Books can give helpful insights into how best to think about it. fivebooks.com/category/hea...

"I love books that take us right to the edge of horror." fivebooks.com/best-books/g...

"Visiting Slovenia every year to work on the house, I became more and more smitten with the exquisite mountains, the verdant meadows, the forests, and the people, and eventually, when the planets aligned, I moved there." fivebooks.com/best-books/s...

Looking for the best books ever written on neuroscience? So are we. We asked the experts, including Lisa Feldman Barrett, Andrew Lees, Dick Passingham, Sebastian Seung, David Brooks and Sarah-Jane Blakemore for their reading recommendations. fivebooks.com/category/psy...

"Dystopias put you in a world where characters (and thus, in some way you, as a reader) have to fight to survive." fivebooks.com/best-books/b...