Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe won the Baillie Giffard Prize for Non-Fiction last year and examines the history of three generations of the Sackler family. Radden Keefe is a journalist f...
Hungry by Grace Dent shares many thematic similarities with A Half-Baked Idea by Olivia Potts in that they are both memoirs about the joys of food, starting out in competitive careers in London a...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2021/04/11/hungry-by-grace-dent-and-scoff-by-pen-vogler/
Agent Sonya by Ben Macintyre is an account of the life of Ursula Kuczynski, born to a German Jewish family in 1907 who later became a Communist spy codenamed Sonya. She moved to Shanghai with her...
I went to a Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist readings event in 2016 where Philippe Sands spoke about his book ‘East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Hum...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2020/04/12/east-west-street-by-philippe-sands/
I enjoy following the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction (previously known as the Samuel Johnson Prize) because it is the one book prize which consistently picks winners I actually agree with:...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2019/11/24/the-five-by-hallie-rubenhold/
‘The Library Book’ by Susan Orlean documents the devastating fire that raged for seven hours at Los Angeles Public Library in April 1986 and destroyed or damaged over one million books. Inve...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2019/05/05/the-library-book-by-susan-orlean/
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction last year, ‘Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy’ by Serhii Plokhy is a comprehensive account of the worst nuclear accident in history. The smal...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2019/03/03/chernobyl-by-serhii-plokhy/
Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell makes a convincing case against the widely held perception of the Middle Ages as a bloodthirsty and violent period of hist...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2018/10/14/three-non-fiction-books-i-have-read-recently/
‘Ghost Wall’ is Sarah Moss’s sixth novel which tells the story of Silvie, a teenage girl spending her summer in a remote area of Northumberland taking part in an “experiential” archaeol...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2018/09/23/ghost-wall-by-sarah-moss/
‘Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow’ is the follow-up to the hugely successful ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ by Yuval Noah Harari which I read last year. Having examined the...
My final Wellcome Book Prize shortlist post is also part of the final day of the blog tour showcasing each book before the winner is announced tomorrow. ‘The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Q...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2018/04/29/the-butchering-art-by-lindsey-fitzharris/
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed The World by Laura Spinney probably isn’t what most people consider to be cosy festive reading over Christmas but it is somewhat seasonal...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2018/01/14/three-non-fiction-books-about-medicine/
The first non-fiction title to be shortlisted since the 2015 relaunch of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award is ‘Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman’ by Mino...
Political events across the world continue to move at a whirlwind pace, particularly here in the UK. Here are my recommendations for three recent non-fiction books about British politics. ‘The ...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2017/07/16/three-political-books-ive-read-recently/
I was half way through reading ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ by Yuval Noah Harari on the tube the other week when a fellow commuter asked me what the book is about. Even though I ha...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2017/05/14/sapiens-a-brief-history-of-humankind-by-yuval-noah-harari/
Formerly known as the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction has a new sponsor this year and a longlist of ten books, whittled down last month to a shortlist of just fou...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2016/11/12/the-baillie-gifford-prize-for-non-fiction-2016/
The longlist for this year’s Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction was announced today. The twelve books are: Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life by Jonathan Bate Fighters in the Shadows: A New Hi...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2015/09/22/the-samuel-johnson-prize-for-non-fiction-2015-longlist/
‘The Golden Age of Murder: The Mystery of the Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story’ by Martin Edwards investigates the mysterious Detection Club of famous crime writers including A...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2015/08/09/the-golden-age-of-murder-by-martin-edwards/
From the perils of crush loading on the Tokyo metro to road rage in the United States, ‘Rush Hour: How 500 million commuters survive the daily journey to work’ by Iain Gately examines the pa...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2015/01/25/rush-hour-by-iain-gately/
Happy new year to you all! I have been continuing my recent spell of non-fiction reading over the Christmas holidays with Bill Bryson’s latest book ‘One Summer: America, 1927’, whose title ...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2015/01/01/one-summer-america-1927-by-bill-bryson/
After reading two excellent novels in recent months about Soviet spies recruited at Cambridge University – Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan and Red Joan by Jennie Rooney – I was intrigued by Ben M...
I read ‘Wolf Hall‘ nearly a year ago and to be honest, I can’t remember a great deal about the actual content of the story and had to force myself to finish it. Although the book was undo...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2013/06/01/bring-up-the-bodies-by-hilary-mantel/
So this isn’t exactly poetry in the traditional sense but it may well be true depending on how you look at it. You can see my previous attempts at spine poetry here, here and here.
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2012/12/07/another-attempt-at-spine-poetry/
The subtitle of ‘At Home’ by Bill Bryson is ‘A Short History of Private Life’ – in other words, a history of all aspects of domestic life including eating, cleaning and sleeping and so ...
https://alittleblogofbooks.com/2012/08/08/at-home-by-bill-bryson/