Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

Søren Kierkegaard The best books on philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Philosopher Professor Clare Carlisle picks the best Kierkegaard books.

"What does it then mean to be true to yourself, if the self that you are is always shifting? That question launched Kierkegaard’s philosophical career—and it is also a biographical question."
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Favourite Music Books Santigold, the critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, discusses the music books that have been most influential to her and her music-making craft.

"When I went to college, I started interning at record companies. And then I started writing songs for other people. The songs started coming out, but not like I wanted them to sound, so I thought I’d just record them myself."
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Filmmaking Filmmaking involves lots of different disciplines, says the acclaimed English screenwriter and author. The secret to it is looking outward.

"You need to look outwards, and you should read other things, and watch other things, and bring those to film."
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The Best Sci Fi Books for Beginners The best sci fi books for introducing new readers to the genre, selected by Nicholas Whyte, administrator of the renowned Hugo Awards for science fiction.

"When people feel like they’re a part of a community, you gather together and you commemorate the achievements of that community. And science fiction, perhaps more than any other literary genre, has always had that community feeling about it."
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The Best Books on Etymology A selection of recommended books on etymology, as recommended over the years by our expert interviewees here at Five Books

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Are you an autodidactic maven of sesquipedalian verbosity? Do you venerate periphrasis, or simply revel in linguistic disquisition? If so, you might enjoy this selection of books on etymology, as recommended by our expert interviewees.

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The Mind and The Brain The Research Fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL, discusses aspects of the relationship between the mind and the brain.

"What comes across in the book is her absolute fascination for autism, and the different ways of investigating its causes."
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Victorian Adventures The best books about Victorian adventures, 19th century adventure books, recommended by Stephen Evans.

"Johnson looks at London during a specific moment in time, August 1854, and focuses on a particular incident, an outbreak of cholera in Soho, in Central London. Cholera was then all too common."
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The Best PG Wodehouse Books The best PG Wodehouse books, as recommended by Sophie Ratcliffe, editor of his letters and Oxford University literature professor.

"He was extremely generous and immensely kind, but rather oblivious, a bit like his own favourite character, the pig-loving Lord Emsworth, the ninth Earl of Blandings."
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The Best Prose Poetry The best prose poetry and modernist French poetry, including Arthur Rimbaud, Gertrude Stein, Francis Ponge and Claudia Rankine, recommended by Jeremy Noel-Tod, poetry critic and editor of the Penguin…

"Her poetry has the same passionately enigmatic yet emphatic quality. It teases and it pleases. “Poetry [is] really loving the name of anything and that is not prose”, as she says."
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Modern Iran Everyday life in Iran is often mischaracterised, says the Iranian author and academic Jasmin Darznik – especially when it comes to the struggles of its women. She recommends five books that give us a…

"When I think of Iran, I think of the grittiness and the vitality of its women. They endure what are sometimes horrific circumstances, and yet I feel that the intelligence and strength of Iranian women is so much more representative of their lives."
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Immigration What are the economic effects of immigration? If they are so good, why do so many people oppose it? How do you handle immigration as a public policy maker?

"The UK is making a lot of money out of immigrants. It gets much more in taxes than it spends, on average, for immigrants."
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Nature of Reality Scientists must assume that there is an objective reality to describe. But the nature of that reality may be more subtle, says Prof. Andrew Briggs.

“Either you have poured milk on your cornflakes or you haven’t—not both, what quantum theory says is possible"
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Religious and Social History in the Ancient World The best books on Late Antiquity, as recommended by Oxford don, Robin Lane Fox.

"During my lifetime late antiquity has sprung to the centre of what so many undergraduates wish to study and what experts in the ancient world immerse themselves in."
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The Best Weird Fiction Books Weird fiction uses the supernatural to throw all our experience into doubt, says author and academic Michael Cisco. He introduces us to five favourites, featuring everything from ghosts to fairies to…

"No matter how good we get at predicting things, no amount of prediction could have told me ten years ago what my life was going to be like now."
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1989 USC Professor of International Relations discusses five books on the end of the Cold War and East Germany's attempts to grapple with its new future post-reunification

"On the one hand you have this wonderfully peaceful ending to the conflict that could have ended in nuclear war, but on the other, you have missed opportunities afterwards."
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Happiness for Children The best books on happiness for children, as recommended by Vanessa King, lead psychologist at charity/non-profit Action for Happiness.

"Happier people tend to be physically healthier, they are less likely to catch colds or experience heart attacks and they are more emotionally resilient."
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The Funniest Books of 2020 The funniest books of 2020 – according to the comedian Pippa Evans, one of the judges for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction.

"Our big rule is that you could not put forward a book unless you have laughed out loud whilst reading it—because there is nothing more brilliant than laughing out loud."
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Favourite Maths Books, especially Geometry Favourite maths books, especially geometry, recommended by mathematician David Acheson, Emeritus Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford

"This is a conjecture dating from 1803 about the densest way to pack three non-overlapping circles into a triangle, and it took over 100 years for someone to realise that the conjecture itself was completely and utterly wrong."
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Negotiation The former chief of staff to Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell, tells us about his experience of negotiating in Northern Ireland, and explains why it's important never to lose your temper except on purpose

"Machiavelli was one of the earliest diplomats. Negotiation was his life; he saw it as power."
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The Most Beautifully Illustrated Children's Books The most beautifully illustrated books for kids, recommended by children's book illustrator and teacher Ella Beech

"I remember, as a child, that moment when I realised that everyone in the world has their own individual story in the life they are living."
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The Best South African Fiction The South African novelist gives us an unvarnished view of the writer’s life, and explains how literature told the story of apartheid and why comedy is the easiest way to talk about race

"Censorship was always quite good for South African writers’ careers. Because most of our readers are abroad, banned writers lost few readers at home and the ensuing publicity increased their audience abroad."
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Motherhood in Literature The novelist, playwright and poet Deborah Levy chooses works that most accurately portray the infamously fraught mother-daughter relationship.

"We know that parents and children scrutinize each other very closely. Children are like a camera on their parents; these are the first people in our lives."
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Childbirth Birth is a transformational experience but it's also an emotionally fraught one, with sometimes traumatic consequences, says midwife Leah Hazard. Here she recommends five books that discuss the deep…

“Birth is a transformative event; it is of ancient, really visceral significance to the person who goes through it."
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Romani History and Culture Their language indicates they originated in India, but the music they play is world music. Some will tell your fortune but they don't believe in supernatural powers. Yaron Matras recommends the best…

"Early Romani history can really only be inferred from the language, which is Indian, so we know that the population originated in India."
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East and West The writer and historian Ian Buruma selects five Western perspectives of the East, including a novel of colonial India, a travelogue of disappearing Japan, and the collection of essays that lifted…

"Now I think more people are at least half informed about Asia, and that means people have fewer prejudices."
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The Best Historical Fiction About Real People Five works of historical fiction based on people who really existed, recommended by novelist Louisa Treger, author of The Paris Muse

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We asked novelist Louisa Treger to recommend five historical novels based on people who really existed, sweeping us from ancient Rome to 1930s Switzerland and everything in between.

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Metaphysics The best books to get a good understanding of metaphysics, recommended and explained by philosopher Tim Crane

"..in chemistry you might learn about different kinds of chemical changes. In metaphysics you ask ‘What is change? How is change possible?’"
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Champions Table tennis champion and author of Bounce: How Champions are Made, Matthew Syed believes that winning is partly the placebo effect of confidence.

"I love lots of different sports but with table tennis my love affair hasn’t ended even though I don’t play it professionally any more."
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The History of Information History professor Ann Blair tells us what researchers have been discovering about how earlier human societies collected, organised and used information

"Information itself is like a treasure chest – multiple users can draw from it and make knowledge from it in different ways."
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