Best Books of 2025

The wondrous, elemental new novel from a 'writer of show-stopping genius' - about nature, people and the sliver of time we have left.
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A Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Financial Times, Independent, BBC and Daily Mail Book of the Year 'Vital, fierce and free.' Financial Times 'Incandescently good.' Sarah Perry 'Pulsing with life and lyricism.' Spectator 'Fiercely exuberant.' Observer 'Delightfully playful.' Andrew Miller 'A truly astonishing thing.' George Monbiot A wondrous, elemental novel from 'a writer of show-stopping genius'. Guardian SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE, THE GORDON BURN PRIZE AND THE WINSTON GRAHAM PRIZE Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and wonder - who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time. This is Helm's life story, formed from the chronicles of those the wind enchanted: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate it, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish it, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture it - and the farmer's daughter who fell in love. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by measuring instruments, alone in her observation hut, fears the end is nigh. Vital and audacious, Helm is the elemental tale of a unique life force - and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other. 'Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself.' DAISY JOHNSON 'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers.' BENJAMIN MYERS 'I'm awed . I wouldn't think a novel could be at once so taut and so multifarious, expanding one's sense of what fiction can do.' SARAH MOSS 'Helm is as vital, fierce and free as the phenomenon it describes.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'A spectacular epic tapestry. Nobody could tell the story of our inextricable relationship with wild nature as beautifully as Sarah Hall.' LEE SCHOFIELD '[Hall] sweeps from the cinematic to the specific, her prose pulsing with life and lyricism. Helm pushes both the boundaries of the novel and our relationship with nature.' SPECTATOR 'A big, celebratory book, in places delightfully playful, in others as tight and breathless as a thriller.' ANDREW MILLER

'Striking, surprising, and technically excellent, the poems resonate way beyond their endings' Roger Robinson 'Deft, daring, devastating and delightful' Pádraig Ó Tuama 'Astonishing. These poems glimmer with a white-hot beauty that is hard won, and that sings' Sarah Ruhl Patient is a normal appearing woman in no obvious distress. On an ordinary day, out with her three-year-old in the park, Amanda Quaid received a life-changing call - the back pain she had been living with for years was actually a rare and aggressive form of cancer. In an instant, life became a series of sterile rooms, medical charts and body-altering treatments which completely upend Amanda's marriage, work and family life as she knows it. Poetry became a lifeline for Amanda, a form to organize the chaos and pain of day-to-day life into order and beauty. In inventive and arresting poems that explore desire, marriage, motherhood and mortality, No Obvious Distress is a powerful memoir-in-verse about Amanda's unique experience. But it is also a tender, witty and universal collection that asks how we can continue to live and love in times of uncertainty.

A once-in-a-generation debut from a major new talent, The Names is the story of three names, three versions of a life, and the infinite possibilities that a single decision can spark. 'I've just been blown away by the best debut novel in years . . . A genius idea for a book' Sunday Times 'Wildly original and emotionally profound' Observer 'An unadulterated success: moving, evocative and utterly convincing' The Times THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER It is 1987, and in the aftermath of a great storm, Cora sets out with her nine-year-old daughter to register the birth of her son. Her husband intends for her to follow a long-standing family tradition and call the baby after him. But when faced with the decision, Cora hesitates. Going against his wishes is a risk that will have consequences, but is it right for her child to inherit his name from generations of domineering men? The choice she makes in this moment will shape the course of their lives. Seven years later, her son is Bear, a name chosen by his sister, and one that will prove as cataclysmic as the storm from which it emerged. Or he is Julian, the name his mother set her heart on, believing it will enable him to become his own person. Or he is Gordon, named after his father and raised in his cruel image - but is there still a chance to break the mould? Powerfully moving and full of hope, this is the story of three names, three versions of a life, and the infinite possibilities that a single decision can spark. It is the story of one family, and love's endless capacity to endure, no matter what fate has in store. CHOSEN AS A SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY MAIL, RED, PRIMA, STYLIST and EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF 2025 | A READ WITH JENNA BOOKCLUB PICK 'The viral literary hit of the summer' Grazia 'A beautiful, heartwrenching, utterly original novel' Miranda Cowley Heller 'The 2025 book that will be everywhere . . . One of those rare books that makes you glad to be alive' Stylist 'Magnificent . . . Read it. It's very special' Chris Whitaker 'Beautifully written, and wise and tender . . . An utter original' Jojo Moyes 'Exceptional . . . will stay with me for a very long time' Anita Rani, Woman's Hour 'Heart-shattering . . . a sucker punch of a novel' Pandora Sykes 'A modern classic' Jenna Bush Hager 'Heartbreaking and yet brimful of hope . . . Exceptional' Mail on Sunday 'Brilliant . . . one of those books that will make you irritable with anyone who interrupts you, but which you'll finish wanting to press into the hands of a friend' The Times 'Astonishing, unique and incredibly moving, The Names is a beautiful novel about the courage of a mother in the moment she names her child . . . I know it will stay with me for a long time' Jeanine Cummins
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"A dazzling debut that asks: Can a name shape the course of a life? In the wake of an enormous, history-making storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to follow his family tradition going back generations, and name the child Gordon. But on the journey there, Cora wonders if it's right to impose the burden of this name and its legacy onto her tiny newborn son. She herself has Julian in mind, and Maia offers up her own suggestion: Bear. What follows are three alternate and alternating versions of both Cora's life and her young son's life shaped by her brave, last-minute choice of name. Spanning thirty-five years, the novel draws us in from the first page, as we follow three unforgettable journeys of one young man, but also his mother, grandmother, and sister. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing. With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family told through a prism of what-ifs, and shows us what we each can do with the "one precious life" we are given. The Names's brilliantly imaginative structure and storytelling, and the emotional, gut-wrenching power of the book itself, are certain to make it a modern classic."--

For thirty years Anne Enright has been paying attention: casting her lucid and distinctive gaze across the world, literature and her own life, and gifting us with her precise insights. These essays, collated from across Anne Enright's career, take us from Galway to Honduras, from keen-eyed memoir to urgent political writing. Enright writes about the free voices and controlled bodies of women in society: she interprets Sophocles' Antigone through the lens of the Mother and Baby Homes in Galway, writes on Ireland's successful 2018 referendum on abortion rights, and offers new perspectives on writers including Alice Munro, Toni Morrison, James Joyce, Helen Garner and Angela Carter. Attention brings Anne Enright's wide-ranging cultural criticism, literary and autobiographical writing together for the first time. Explorations of the intersection between the personal and political, the subtleties of bodily autonomy, complex family dynamics and the challenges of intimacy preoccupy Anne Enright's award-winning and critically acclaimed fiction. Here we see Enright grappling with and answering these questions in her non-fiction. It is a defining collection from one of our most distinguished literary voices.
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From one of our most distinguished literary voices, a defining essay collection blending personal reflection with urgent political writing and wide–ranging cultural criticism. For thirty years Anne Enright―one of our greatest living novelists (Times)―has been paying attention: casting her lucid and distinctive gaze across the world, literature, and her own life, and drawing us into her precise insights. These essays, collated from throughout Enright’s career, take us from Galway to Honduras, from keen–eyed memoir to urgent political writing. Enright writes about the free voices and controlled bodies of women in society: she interprets Sophocles’s Antigone through the lens of the Mother and Baby Homes in Galway; writes on Ireland’s successful 2018 referendum on abortion rights; and offers new perspectives on writers such as Alice Munro, Toni Morrison, James Joyce, Helen Garner, and Angela Carter. True to the themes that saturate her award–winning fiction, Attention explores the intersection between the personal and political, complex family dynamics, and the body in crystalline, urgent prose. This stunning collection unites Enright’s cultural criticism, literary, and autobiographical writing for the first time.

"Teenaged Istvâan lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbor--a married woman close to his mother's age, whom he begrudgingly helps with errands--as his only companion. But as these periodical encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that Istvâan himself can barely understand, his life soon spirals out of control, ending in a violent accident thatleaves a man dead. What follows is a rocky trajectory that sees Istvâan emigrate from Hungary to London, where he moves from job to job before finding steady work as a driver for London's billionaire class. At each juncture, his life is affected by the goodwill or self-interest of strangers. Through it all, Istvâan is a calm, detached observer of his own life, and through his eyes we experience a tragic twist on an immigrant "success story," brightened by moments of sensitivity, softness, and Szalay's keen observation"--
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**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025** 'A masterpiece, told with virtuosic economy... Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence’ India Knight 'Brilliance on every page' Samantha Harvey 'Spare, visceral, urgent, compelling. This book doesn't f**k around' Gary Stevenson ‘So brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money' David Nicholls Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman close to his mother’s age – as his only companion. As these encounters shift into a clandestine relationship, István’s life spirals out of control. Years later, rising through the ranks from the army to the elite circles of London's super-rich, he navigates the twenty-first century's tides of money and power. Torn between love, intimacy, status, and wealth, his newfound riches threaten to undo him completely. ‘How do I get out of a reading slump? This is the book to do that’ Rhianna Dhillon, BBC Radio 4 'A revelatory novel' Sunday Times 'So much searing insight into the way we live now' Observer ‘Refreshing, illuminating and true’ Financial Times 'Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant' Tessa Hadley 'One of the year’s best novels to date' Daily Mail ‘Utterly engrossing and I read it all in a day’ 5* reader review ‘I was hooked and tried to read this book with any spare moment that I had' 5* reader review A ‘Best Book of 2025’ in the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail
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From Booker Prize-winning author David Szalay, comes a propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp. Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour—a married woman close to his mother’s age—as his only companion. These encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, and his life soon spirals out of control. As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the currents of the twenty-first century’s tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London’s super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely. Spare and penetrating, Flesh is the finest novel yet by a master of realism, asking profound questions about what drives a life: what makes it worth living, and what breaks it.

A bold and brilliant short work by the author of the Goldsmiths Prize-winning Cuddy
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A bold and brilliant short work by the author of the Goldsmiths Prize-winning Cuddy November, 1971. Berlin, Germany. Opening night. Klaus Kinski, Germany's most controversial actor, steps into the spotlight to a crowd of thousands. After years of making movies abroad, he has returned to the stage for a much-publicized one-man performance about Jesus Christ. As the crowd turn on him and violence is threatened, it is also very nearly his last. After this week, he will never perform on stage again. Exactly fifty years later, a hypochondriac writer, housebound by winter snowstorms, becomes fixated with video footage of Kinski at his most manic. In this forensic analysis, he strays into the darker corners of modern culture, and finally begins to understand the compulsive urge that drives artists to the edge of sanity in their pursuit of perfection. Jesus Christ Kinski is a novel about a film about a performance about Jesus. It is a daring act of literary ventriloquism, a meditation on censorship, creativity, loneliness - and just how far our tolerance is tested by bad people who make great art. Praise for Benjamin Myers 'One of our finest, and most deftly imaginative, writers' i news 'Radical and gorgeous' Max Porter 'A writer of extraordinary and incandescent talent' Alex Preston

Drawing on never-before-seen interviews, a richly researched, sweeping examination of one of the most influential and mythologized literary figures of the 20th century and her partner’s emergence from the shadows after her death, in the decades-long fight to ensure her legacy. Gertrude Stein’s salon at 27 rue de Fleurus in the 6th arrondissement of Paris is the stuff of literary legend. Many have tried to capture the spirit and glamour of the place that once entertained and fostered the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, but perhaps none as determinedly, and self-consciously, as Stein herself. In this new biography of the polarizing, trailblazing author, collector, salonnière, and tastemaker, Francesca Wade rescues Stein from the tangle of contradictions that has characterized her legacy, expertly presenting us with this towering literary figure as we’ve never seen her before. A genius to her admirers, a charlatan to her detractors, Stein achieved international celebrity in 1933 with her bestselling memoir, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, written in the voice of her devoted partner—a triumph which, ironically, only drew attention away from the avant-garde poetry she called her “real” writing. After Stein’s death in 1946, Alice B. Toklas made it her mission to shepherd all of Stein’s unpublished writing into print, all the while negotiating her own fraught role in the complex mythology they had built together. The biographers who flocked to Stein’s newly opened archive found a surprising trove of secrets which would change Stein’s image forever: a forgotten novel, a cache of love letters, and a series of notebooks which shed entirely new light on her early years in Paris. Pushing beyond the conventions of literary biography, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife is a bold, innovative examination of the nature of legacy and memory itself, in which Wade uncovers the origins of Stein’s radical writing and reveals new depths to the storied relationship that made it possible. A captivating, brilliant work of biography, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife is a groundbreaking examination of a true literary giant.
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE AMERICAN LIBRARY IN PARIS BOOK AWARD 2025 'Strikingly accomplished . . . utterly compelling.' SUNDAY TIMES 'A masterpiece of biography.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A total joy to read.' SARAH BAKEWELL 'I feel like I've been waiting for this book my whole life.' SHEILA HETI A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN: THE GUARDIAN THE SPECTATOR THE TELEGRAPH THE INDEPENDENT ARTFORUM WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD NPR'S FRESH AIR From the celebrated author of Square Haunting comes a biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells. 'Think of the Bible and Homer think of Shakespeare and think of me,' wrote Gertrude Stein in 1936. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan: she remains one of the most confounding - and contested - writers of the twentieth century. In this literary detective story, Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. We see her posing for Picasso's portrait; at the centre of Bohemian Parisian life hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with her enigmatic companion Alice B. Toklas; dazzling American crowds on her sell-out tour for her sensational Autobiography - a veritable celebrity. Yet Stein hoped to be remembered not for her personality but for her work. From her deathbed, she charged her partner with securing her place in literary history. How would her legend shift once it was Toklas's turn to tell the stories - especially when uncomfortable aspects of their past emerged from the archive? Using astonishing never-before-seen material, Wade uncovers the origins of Stein's radical writing, and reveals new depths to the storied relationship which made it possible. This is Gertrude Stein as she was when nobody was watching: captivating, complex and human.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME MAGAZINE, MARIE CLAIRE, BOOK RIOT, ESQUIRE, KIRKUS, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND MORE! ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A tightly wound family drama that reads like a psychological thriller."—NPR “Bold, stark, genre-bending, Audition will haunt your dreams.”—The Boston Globe One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.
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**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025** A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES, BBC, TIME, VOGUE, MARIE CLAIRE, ESQUIRE and ROLLING STONE BOOK TO READ IN 2025 'Slick, sharp, strange and singular . . . You’ll gulp this novel down in one in-breath' SAMANTHA HARVEY, Booker Prize-winning author of Orbital 'A lightning bolt of a novel' FINANCIAL TIMES 'I’m not sure there’s anyone better writing in America today' ALEX PRESTON, Observer One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilising novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

Short-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Long-listed for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography The award-winning biographer Frances Wilson presents an exhilarating new look at Muriel Spark, a consummate artist of the twentieth century. “Is the story fact? Is it fiction? It is what it is,” said Muriel Spark. Muriel Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences, and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as “Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes.” By following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography, and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code. Electric Spark explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers. It takes us through her early years, when turmoil reigned: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skullduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge, and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Spark, it is because her experiences in the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically distilled, the material of her art. “As good a critic as she is a biographer [and] as sharp a stylist as she is a reader” (The Boston Globe), in Electric Spark Frances Wilson brings her enormous, incandescent powers to bear on one of the most formidable writers of the twentieth century.
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*A 2025 HIGHLIGHT FOR: Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Observer and Scotsman* 'A brilliant, wonderfully shrewd biography' WILLIAM BOYD 'A joyously, brilliantly intelligent work of biography. In Wilson, Spark has met her true match' ANNE ENRIGHT 'A pitch-perfect, electrifying symphony, reconfirming Wilson's pre-eminence as Maestra of British biography' RACHEL HOLMES The word most commonly used to describe Muriel Spark is 'puzzling'. Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as 'Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes'. Following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code. Electric Spark explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers. We return to her early years when everything was piled on: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skulduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge, and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Muriel Spark it is because the experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.
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LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025 'Absolutely mesmerising' SPECTATOR 'Unputdownable' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Brilliant' WILLIAM BOYD From one of our leading biographers and critics comes an exhilarating, landmark new look at Muriel Spark. Muriel Spark was a puzzle, and so too were her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events. In Electric Spark, Frances Wilson aims to finally crack her code. We return to Spark's early years when everything was piled on: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skulduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Muriel Spark it is because the experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art. 'A revolutionary book . . . Leaves conventional biographical techniques gasping in the dust . . . Deceptively supple, astonishingly rigorous . . . I was possessed by this book in the same way that I suspect its author was possessed by Spark' Lisa Hilton, SPECTATOR 'In Wilson, Spark has met her true match' ANNE ENRIGHT 'Whip-smart . . . I raced through it' Ali Smith, GUARDIAN 'Wilson's books are intense, eclectic and wildly diversionary, her intelligence rising from their pages like steam' Rachel Cooke, OBSERVER *A 2025 HIGHLIGHT FOR: Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Observer and Scotsman*

A theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress he has a one-night stand with in this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox. “Excellent…brilliant…a fiery reminder that we still have so far to go when it comes to men behaving poorly and getting away with it.”—LitHub "A binge-worthy novel that explores our obsessions, our inner critic, and who we think we are in person and in print. Intimate, real, and really funny. This one has teeth.” —Kiley Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Come and Get It and Such a Fun Age One of Glamour's Best Books for Book Clubs Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress. Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she’s not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself—entitled son of a famous actress, serial philanderer, and by all accounts a terrible man. Yet Alex remains unapologetic. As his reputation goes up in flames, he insists on telling his unvarnished version of events to his colleague, Sophie. Through her eyes, we see that the deeper she gets pulled into his downfall, the more conflicted she becomes. After all, there are always two sides to every story. A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.
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A theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress he has a one-night stand with in this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox. “Bring the House Down is sharp-witted, wise, and authentic—what a fierce, fantastically funny read.”—Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had and Same As It Ever Was Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave, or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress. Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she’s not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself—entitled son of a famous actress, serial philanderer, and by all accounts a terrible man. Yet Alex remains unapologetic. As his reputation goes up in flames, he insists on telling his unvarnished version of events to his colleague, Sophie. Through her eyes, we see that the deeper she gets pulled into his downfall, the more conflicted she becomes. After all, there are always two sides to every story. A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.

'This is a book about being raised as a feral, motherless child; starting work at 17; immortalising several of this country’s most endearing catchphrases; triumphing at Cannes; being told you’re a genius by Peter Cook; and, at one party, accidentally taking some of Shaun Ryder’s crack, then attempting to set fire to a woman’s arse.' Caitlin Moran, Times Magazine Kathy Burke is one of Britain's most distinctive voices. Even as a fearless kid in Islington, she did things her own way; roaming the estate that raised her to find her own path. A place at the Anna Scher Theatre in her teens changed the course of her life, and she found unimaginable success as an actress and writer - and national fame. But the rare gift that has always set her apart, beyond the stage or screen, is her ability to see the truth and tell it like it is. This spellbinding memoir is not just Kathy's story, but the story of her class, her gender and her time. A Mind of My Own is funny, profound and deeply entertaining. 'Glorious, very funny and no-nonsense, just like Kathy Burke' Jo Brand

A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY GQ AND THE INDEPENDENT 'A marvellous book ... enhances our understanding of ourselves and others' IRVINE WELSH 'Enlightening' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'If you want to figure anger out - then this is for you' - Financial Times -- DISCOVER HOW A MISUNDERSTOOD EMOTION CAN OFFER YOU CLARITY, PURPOSE AND STRENGTH Feeling ashamed or afraid of anger is a major factor in why many of us suffer with anxiety and depression. When we repress our rage, it harms our health and quietly sabotages our most important relationships. Yet when we learn to listen to it properly and act on it wisely, anger becomes a source of remarkable insight, energy and purpose - an emotion that not only protects us but helps improve all areas of our lives, from love to creativity to professional success. In Good Anger, journalist Sam Parker traces his own journey with our most misunderstood emotion, explores how it became a cultural taboo, and argues why anger should be the next frontier of the mental health movement. Drawing on lessons from psychology, philosophy and science, he proposes a radical new path for people pleasers and conflict avoiders everywhere. Provocative, insightful and timely, this book will help you understand your own struggle with anger - and transform your relationship to it completely.
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A compelling exploration of how to harness your anger

Named One of the New York Times Book Review's Top Ten Books of 2025 Finalist for the Kirkus Prize A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces her complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati’s life both as a woman and a writer. Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as “my shelter and my storm.” “Heart-smashed” by her mother Mary’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and “more than a little ashamed” by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, “not because I didn’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her.” And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today. With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.

'Absolutely wonderful. The book I've been waiting to read since I was ten years old. Full of surprising and piercing insights . . . The first thing I've come across that absolutely nails the extraordinary nature of the cultural phenomenon that is Doctor Who' JEREMY DYSON On screen, Doctor Who is a story of monsters, imagination and mind-expanding adventure. But the off-screen story is equally extraordinary - a tale of failed monks, war heroes, 1960s polyamory and self-sabotaging broadcasting executives. From the politics of fandom to the inner struggles of the BBC, thousands of people have given part of themselves - and sometimes, too much of themselves - to bring this unlikeliest of folk heroes to life. This is a story of change, mystery and the importance of imaginary characters in our lives. Able to evolve and adapt more radically than any other fiction, Doctor Who has acted as a mirror to more than six decades of social, technological and cultural change while always remaining a central fixture of the British imagination. In Exterminate / Regenerate, John Higgs invites us into his TARDIS on a journey to discover how ideas emerge and survive despite the odds, why we are so addicted to fiction, and why this wonderful wandering time traveller means so much to so many.