Non-Fiction 2025

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction | Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize An unforgettable and inspiring true story of how one family’s grief transformed into a lifesaving gift—written by a bestselling author and palliative care doctor. The first of our organs to form and the last to die, the heart is both a simple pump and the symbol of what makes us human; as long as it continues to beat, there is hope. In The Story of a Heart, Dr. Rachel Clarke blends the history of medical innovations behind transplant surgery with the story of two children—one of whom desperately needs a new heart. One summer day, nine-year-old Keira Ball was in a terrible car accident and suffered catastrophic brain injuries. As the rest of her body began to shut down, her heart continued to beat. In an act of extraordinary generosity, Keira’s parents and siblings immediately agreed that she would have wanted to be an organ donor. Meanwhile nine-year-old Max Johnson had been in a hospital for nearly a year, valiantly fighting the virus that was causing his young heart to fail. When Max’s parents received the call they had been hoping for, they knew it came at a terrible cost to another family—in what Clarke calls “the brutal arithmetic of transplant surgery.” The act of Keira’s heart resuming its rhythm inside Max’s body was a medical miracle. But this was only part of the story. While waiting on the transplant list, Max had become the hopeful face of a campaign to change the UK’s laws around organ donation. Following his successful surgery, Keira’s mother saw the little boy beaming on the front page of the newspaper and knew it was the same boy whose parents had recently sent her an anonymous letter overflowing with gratitude for her daughter’s heart. The two mothers began to exchange messages and eventually decided to meet. In this “profoundly moving…[and] beautiful, humane book” (Rob Delaney) Clarke relates the urgent journey of Keira’s heart and explores the history of the remarkable surgery that made it possible, stretching back over a century and involving the knowledge and dedication of surgeons, nurses and technicians, immunologists and paramedics. A powerful tale of two families linked by one heart, The Story of a Heart is a testament to compassion for the dying, the many ways we honor our loved ones, and the tenacity of love.

NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE 2025 WOMEN'S PRIZE • A fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, TIME, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Scientific American, Slate “Moving. . . . Impart[s] valuable lessons about slowing down and the beauty in the unexpected.”—USA Today “A perfect testimony to the transformative power of love.”—Margaret Renkl, author of The Comfort of Crows Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and bounded around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, more than two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality. In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how difficult it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, weasels, feral cats, raptors, or even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death. Raising Hare chronicles their journey together while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness firsthand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.
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THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING WINNER OF BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION, HATCHARDS AND BIOGRAPHERS' CLUB FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE HAY FESTIVAL, SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR, ECONOMIST AND iNEWS 'A beautiful book' - ANGELINA JOLIE 'I will be recommending this to everyone' - MATT HAIG 'Quietly profound, beautifully written, Hare is now lodged in my heart' - TRACY CHEVALIER __ Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end. This happened to me. When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival. Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild. We witness an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife. This improbable bond of trust serves to remind us that the most remarkable experiences, inspiring the most hope, often arise when we least expect them.

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE PICK LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NONFICTION “Riveting . . . a powerful snapshot of four young Chinese women attempting to assert control over the direction of their lives.” —The New York Times Book Review “As powerfully intimate as it is politically incendiary.” —British Vogue A sweeping yet intimate portrait of modern China told through the lives of four ordinary women striving for a better future in a highly unequal society While serving as the deputy Beijing bureau chief of the Financial Times, Chinese-British journalist Yuan Yang began to notice common threads in the lives of her Chinese peers—women born during China’s turn toward capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s, who, despite the country's enormous economic gains during their lifetimes, were coming up against deeply entrenched barriers as they sought to achieve financial stability. The product of seven years of intimate, in-depth reporting, this transporting and indelible book traces the journey of four such women as they try to make better lives for themselves and their families in the new Chinese economy. June and Siyue are among the few in their villages to graduate high school. Each makes her way to Beijing, June as a young professional and Siyue an entrepreneur. Like Siyue, Leiya lives with her grandparents in their village while her parents send money home; yearning for a different life than those of the women she sees around her, Leiya soon joins her parents in Shenzhen as an underage factory worker. Born to an urban middle-class family, Sam is outraged when her eyes are opened the poor treatment of workers, and becomes a labor activist, increasingly under threat by the authorities. As the women grapple with government policies that threaten their businesses, their children's access to education, their choice of where to make a home, and, in Sam’s case, their lives, a vivid, damning, and urgent picture emerges of the previously unseen human cost of China’s rising economic tide—and the courage and perseverance of those caught in the swell.
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"This is a book about the coming of age of four women born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, dreaming of better futures. It is about Leiya, who wants to escape the fate of the women in her village. Still underage, she bluffs her way on to the factory floor. It is about June, who at fifteen sets what her family thinks is an impossible goal- to attend university rather than raise pigs. It is about Siyue, ranked second-to-bottom of her English class, who decides to prove her teachers wrong. And it is about Sam, who becomes convinced that the only way to change her country is to become an activist even as the authorities slowly take her peers from the streets. With unprecedented access to the lives, hopes, homes, dreams and diaries of four ordinary women over a period of six years, Private Revolutions gives a voice to those whose stories go untold. At a time of rising state censorship and suppression, it unearths the identity of modern Chinese society and, through the telling, something of our own"--Publisher's description.
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A sweeping yet intimate portrait of modern China told through the lives of four ordinary women, each striving for a better future in an unequal society.
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A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE PICK FINALIST FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NONFICTION “Riveting . . . a powerful snapshot of four young Chinese women attempting to assert control over the direction of their lives.” —The New York Times Book Review “As powerfully intimate as it is politically incendiary.” —British Vogue A sweeping yet intimate portrait of modern China told through the lives of four ordinary women striving for a better future in a highly unequal society While serving as the deputy Beijing bureau chief of the Financial Times, Chinese-British journalist Yuan Yang began to notice common threads in the lives of her Chinese peers—women born during China’s turn toward capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s, who, despite the country's enormous economic gains during their lifetimes, were coming up against deeply entrenched barriers as they sought to achieve financial stability. The product of seven years of intimate, in-depth reporting, this transporting and indelible book traces the journey of four such women as they try to make better lives for themselves and their families in the new Chinese economy. June and Siyue are among the few in their villages to graduate high school. Each makes her way to Beijing, June as a young professional and Siyue an entrepreneur. Like Siyue, Leiya lives with her grandparents in their village while her parents send money home; yearning for a different life than those of the women she sees around her, Leiya soon joins her parents in Shenzhen as an underage factory worker. Born to an urban middle-class family, Sam is outraged when her eyes are opened the poor treatment of workers, and becomes a labor activist, increasingly under threat by the authorities. As the women grapple with government policies that threaten their businesses, their children's access to education, their choice of where to make a home, and, in Sam’s case, their lives, a vivid, damning, and urgent picture emerges of the previously unseen human cost of China’s rising economic tide—and the courage and perseverance of those caught in the swell.

The incredible and inspiring story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the World War II female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo. During World War II, Elzbieta Zawacka—the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo—was the only woman to reach London as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command. In Britain, she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the "Silent Unseen.” She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then she was the only female member of these forces to be parachuted back behind enemy lines to Nazi-occupied Poland. There, while being hunted by the Gestapo (who arrested her entire family), she took a leading role in the Warsaw Uprising and the liberation of Poland. After the war, she was discharged as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed post-war Communist regime not only imprisoned (and tortured) her, but also ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for over forty years. Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside Agent Zo, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten heroine back to brilliant life—while transforming how we value the history of women resistance fighters during World War II.

The acclaimed marine biologist and author of The Brilliant Abyss examines the existential threats the world’s ocean will face in the coming decades and offers cautious optimism for much of the abundant life within in No matter where we live, “we are all ocean people,” Helen Scales emphatically observes in her bracing yet hopeful exploration of the future of the ocean. Beginning with its fascinating deep history, Scales links past to present to show how the prehistoric ocean ecology was already working in ways similar to the ocean of today. In elegant, evocative prose, she takes readers into the realms of animals that epitomize today’s increasingly challenging conditions. Ocean life everywhere is on the move as seas warm, and warm waters are an existential threat to emperor penguins, whose mating grounds in Antarctica are collapsing. Shark populations—critical to balanced ecosystems—have shrunk by 71 per cent since the 1970s, largely the result of massive and oft-unregulated industrial fishing. Orcas—the apex predators—have also drastically declined, victims of toxic chemicals and plastics with long half-lives that disrupt the immune system and the ability to breed. Yet despite these threats, many hopeful signs remain. Increasing numbers of no-fish zones around the world are restoring once-diminishing populations. Amazing seagrass meadows and giant kelp forests rivaling those on land are being regenerated and expanded. They may be our best defense against the storm surges caused by global warming, while efforts to reengineer coral reefs for a warmer world are growing. Offering innovative ideas for protecting coastlines and cleaning the toxic seas, Scales insists we need more ethical and sustainable fisheries and must prevent the other existential threat of deep-sea mining, which could significantly alter life on earth. Inspiring us all to maintain a sense of awe and wonder at the majesty beneath the waves, she urges us to fight for the better future that still exists for the Anthropocene ocean.

A New York Times Notable Book • A New York Times Review Editors' Choice • Named a Best Book of the year by FT • Nominated for the Women's prize for nonfiction • Winner of the 2025 ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction “A trove of thrilling material . . . skillfully examines the racism, sexism, economic privation and class prejudices that permeated postwar England . . . There’s so much to admire in this engaging, deeply researched book.” —The New York Times Book Review “An absorbing portrait of post-WWII London.” —Booklist From the Edgar Award–winning author of The Haunting of Alma Fielding, the tale of two journalists competing to solve the notorious Christie murders in postwar London In March 1953, London police discovered the bodies of three young women hidden in a wall at 10 Rillington Place, a dingy rowhouse in Notting Hill. On searching the building, they found another body beneath the floorboards, then an array of human bones in the garden. They launched a nationwide manhunt for the tenant of the ground-floor apartment, a softly spoken former policeman named Reg Christie. But they had already investigated a double murder at 10 Rillington Place three years before, and the killer was hanged. Did they get the wrong man? The story was an instant sensation. The star reporter Harry Procter chased after the scoop on Christie. The eminent crime writer Fryn Tennyson Jesse begged her editor to let her cover the case. To Harry and Fryn, Christie seemed a new kind of murderer: he was vacant, impersonal, a creature of a brutish postwar world. Christie liked to watch women, they discovered, and he liked to kill them. They realized that he might also have engineered a terrible miscarriage of justice. In this riveting true story, Kate Summerscale mines the archives to uncover the lives of Christie’s victims, the tabloid frenzy that their deaths inspired, and the truth about what happened inside the house. What she finds sheds fascinating light on the origins of our fixation with true crime—and suggests a new solution to one of the most notorious cases of the century.
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'Once more, Kate Summerscale shatters our preconceptions of a classic crime' Val McDermid From Britain's top-selling true crime writer and author of Sunday Times #1 bestseller THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER... London, 1953. Police discover the bodies of three young women hidden in a wall at 10 Rillington Place, a dingy terrace house in Notting Hill. On searching the building, th[Bokinfo].
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The UK's top-selling true crime writer and author of the #1 bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher takes on the notorious murders at 10 Rillington Place
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LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025 FROM BRITAIN'S TOP-SELLING TRUE CRIME WRITER AND THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: The Times/Sunday Times, Financial Times, Spectator, Independent, Tablet and New Statesman 'Once more, Kate Summerscale shatters our preconceptions of a classic crime' Val McDermid 'I really, really loved it. It's written so beautifully and it really makes you feel like you're in the 1950s' Richard Osman 'Every bit the gripping, page-turning treat' Mark Bostridge, Spectator London, 1953. Police discover the bodies of three young women hidden in a wall at 10 Rillington Place, a dingy terrace house in Notting Hill. On searching the building, they find another body beneath the floorboards, then an array of human bones in the garden. But they have already investigated a double murder at 10 Rillington Place, three years ago, and the killer was hanged. Did they get the wrong man? A nationwide manhunt is launched for the tenant of the ground-floor flat, a softly spoken former policeman named Reg Christie. Star reporter Harry Procter chases after the scoop. Celebrated crime writer Fryn Tennyson Jesse begs to be assigned to the case. The story becomes an instant sensation, and with the relentless rise of the tabloid press the public watches on like never before. Who is Christie? Why did he choose to kill women, and to keep their bodies near him? As Harry and Fryn start to learn the full horror of what went on at Rillington Place, they realise that Christie might also have engineered a terrible miscarriage of justice in plain sight. In this riveting true story, Kate Summerscale mines the archives to uncover the lives of Christie's victims, the tabloid frenzy that their deaths inspired, and the truth about what happened inside the house.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION Discover the essential, must-read book about how the UK legal system is failing women, as told by one of Britain’s foremost lawyers. 'This is a brilliant and important book. Harriet is a trailblazer and has done so much to get justice for so many women.' - Victoria Derbyshire 'Compelling, inspiring, horrifying and humbling in equal measure. Everybody should read it.' - Professor Dame Sue Black, author of All That Remains ‘Every feminist should know Harriet Wistrich’s name. There is no one better to learn from if you want to Get Shit Done.’ - Helen Lewis, author of Difficult Women 'A shocking, sobering and galvanising account of her astonishing legal career fighting for women in a legal system that is all too often stacked against them' - Caroline Criado Perez ***** For more than quarter of a century, Harriet Wistrich has fought the corner of people from all walks of life let down by our justice system. She has been at the forefront of some historic and ground-breaking legal victories, from helping the victims of taxi driver and serial rapist John Worboys, to representing a pioneering group of the women caught up in the ‘spy cops’ scandal – women deceived into forming long-term relationships with men later revealed to be undercover police officers. Litigation can be a long and rocky path of pitfalls and dead ends and there are defeats as well as gains, hours of painstaking work as well as courtroom drama. It takes collaboration, extraordinary tenacity and huge compassion, but Harriet Wistrich is proof that it is possible to demand better justice and to bring about important change. Exploring landmark cases, Sister in Law covers the shocking true stories demonstrating that, terrifyingly often, the law is not-fit-for-purpose for half the population and shines a feminist light on the landscape of arcane laws and systems skewed towards men. ***** Praise for Sister in Law: ‘Shocking, compelling and invigorating... A must read from one of the foremost feminist human rights lawyers today' Keina Yoshida & Jen Robinson 'A brilliant lawyer. A brilliant book' - Baroness Helena Kennedy KC 'Harriet's innovative, intense and courageous commitment to safeguarding basic rights, is compellingly set out in every chapter.' - Michael Mansfield KC ‘A vivid account of cases in which the justice system has spectacularly failed women but also of how injustices can be challenged if only we know enough and care enough to do so.’ - Rt Hon Lady Hale DBE 'If I was ever in trouble, I would want Harriet Wistrich fighting in my corner.' - Emeritus Professor David Wilson, author of My Life with Murderers
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How the UK legal system is failing women, as told by one of Britain's foremost lawyers. 'Sister in Law is compelling, shocking and inspiring in equal measure..this accessible book is a must for anyone interested in justice, society and using the law to achieve change.' - The Times 'Enraging and astonishing.' - Guardian 'A remarkable book chronicling an astonishing career ... Highly recommended.' - Secret Barrister 'Every feminist should know Harriet Wistrich's name. There is no one better to learn from if you want to Get Shit Done.' Helen Lewis, author of Difficult Women ***** For more than quarter of a century, Harriet Wistrich has fought the corner of people from all walks of life let down by our justice system. She has been at the forefront of some historic and ground-breaking legal victories, from helping the victims of taxi driver and serial rapist John Worboys, to representing a pioneering group of the women caught up in the 'spy cops' scandal - women deceived into forming long-term relationships with men later revealed to be undercover police officers. Litigation can be a long and rocky path of pitfalls and dead ends and there are defeats as well as gains, hours of painstaking work as well as courtroom drama. It takes collaboration, extraordinary tenacity and huge compassion, but Harriet Wistrich is proof that it is possible to demand better justice and to bring about important change. Exploring landmark cases, Sister in Law covers the shocking true stories demonstrating that, terrifyingly often, the law is not-fit-for-purpose for half the population and shines a feminist light on the landscape of arcane laws and systems skewed towards men. ***** Praise for Sister in Law: 'Shocking, compelling and invigorating... A must read from one of the foremost feminist human rights lawyers today' Keina Yoshida & Jen Robinson 'A brilliant lawyer. A brilliant book' - Baroness Helena Kennedy KC 'Harriet's innovative, intense and courageous commitment to safeguarding basic rights, is compellingly set out in every chapter.' - Michael Mansfield KC 'A vivid account of cases in which the justice system has spectacularly failed women but also of how injustices can be challenged if only we know enough and care enough to do so.' Rt Hon Lady Hale DBE 'If I was ever in trouble, I would want Harriet Wistrich fighting in my corner.' - Emeritus Professor David Wilson, author of My Life with Murderers

A Best Book of 2020: The Washington Post * NPR * Chicago Tribune * Smithsonian A “remarkable” (Los Angeles Times), “seductive” (The Wall Street Journal) debut from the new cohost of Radiolab, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and—possibly—even murder.​ “At one point, Miller dives into the ocean into a school of fish…comes up for air, and realizes she’s in love. That’s how I felt: Her book took me to strange depths I never imagined, and I was smitten.” —The New York Times Book Review David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered. Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish that he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world. When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool—a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet. Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.
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Nineteenth-century scientist David Starr Jordan built one of the most important fish specimen collections ever seen, until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake shattered his life's work.

From an acclaimed historian comes an epic tale of power and betrayal: the dual biography of Richard II and Henry IV, two cousins whose tumultuous reigns shaped the course of English history. Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor. Castor showcases the enigmatic Richard II, a king who clung to his divine right to rule but lacked the leadership to sustain his throne. His reign, marred by narcissism and disdain for constitutional principles, spiraled into chaos, ultimately leading to his downfall at the hands of his cousin. Enter Henry IV—a stark contrast. Castor portrays him as a chivalric hero, a leader who inspired loyalty and camaraderie. Yet, his journey to the throne was anything but smooth, plagued by rebellion and political turmoil. What makes Castor’s account so compelling is her ability to weave these personal stories into the bigger picture. She explores the turbulent themes of masculinity, identity, and the fragile nature of power, offering a timely reminder of the perils of self-obsessed rulers—and the challenges faced by those who follow in their wake. Richly researched and beautifully written, The Eagle and the Hart isn’t just a history book—it’s a gripping tale of leadership, legacy, and the timeless struggle for power. For anyone fascinated by medieval England or the universal dynamics of power and ambition, this is not to be missed.
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"The dual biography of Richard II and Henry IV, two cousins whose lives played out in extraordinary parallel, until Henry deposed the tyrant Richard and declared himself King of England"--

'Beautiful, deep, dangerous, transfixing . . . it will burn a home in your heart, it has in mine. Read every word of every page. Turn them carefully. Jenni Fagan is made of fire and spirit. From start to finish I could not put it down. Close the door. Sit down now. Read Ootlin. Read' LEMN SISSAY 'Essential reading, life changing, I couldn't stop reading once I started . . . Unbelievably brave. Beautiful, earth shattering and unforgettable. A truly rare talent' SAMANTHA MORTON The government told a story about me before I was born. Jenni Fagan was property of the state before birth. She drew her first breath in care and by the age of seven, she had lived in fourteen different homes and had changed name multiple times. Twenty years after her first attempt to write this powerful memoir, Jenni is finally ready to share her account. Ootlin is a journey through the broken UK care system - it is one of displacement and exclusion, but also of the power of storytelling. It is about the very human act of making meaning from adversity.
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WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2025 Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non Fiction 2025 'An astonishing story of survival' GUARDIAN 'Extraordinary and uplifting' OBSERVER 'A triumphant tale of survival' FINANCIAL TIMES 'An extraordinary book' LITERARY REVIEW 'To read this book is to be reminded of the importance of kindness, of beauty and of storytelling' iPAPER 'A phenomenal memoir. I am in awe' AMY LIPTROT 'Beautiful, deep, transfixing . . . it will burn a home in your heart' LEMN SISSAY 'Essential reading, life-changing ... Beautiful, earth-shattering and unforgettable' SAMANTHA MORTON 'Mesmerising, heart-breaking. I'll never forget it' ANNIE MAC 'Should be required reading' CLAIRE FULLER The government told a story about me before I was born. Jenni Fagan was property of the state before birth. She drew her first breath in care and by the age of seven, she had lived in fourteen different homes and had her name changed multiple times. Twenty years after her first attempt to write this powerful memoir, Jenni is finally ready to share her account. Ootlin is a journey through the broken UK care system – it is one of displacement and exclusion, but also of the power of storytelling. It is about the very human act of making meaning from adversity.

Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice A Times (UK) Best History Book of the Year “Endlessly fascinating, authoritatively informative and, above all, great fun.” —Heather O’Donoghue, Times Literary Supplement A “brilliantly written, brilliantly conceived” (Tom Holland) history of the Viking Age, from mighty leaders to rebellious teenagers, told through their runes and ruins, games and combs, trash and treasure. In imagining a Viking, a certain image springs to mind: a barbaric warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorize the hapless local population of a northern European town. Yet while such characters define our imagination of the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. Instead, in the time-stopping soils, water, and ice of the North, Eleanor Barraclough excavates a preserved lost world, one that reimagines a misunderstood society. By examining artifacts of the past—remnants of wooden gaming boards, elegant antler combs, doodles by imaginative children and bored teenagers, and runes that reveal hidden loves, furious curses, and drunken spouses summoned home from the pub—Barraclough illuminates life in the medieval Nordic world as not just a world of rampaging warriors, but as full of globally networked people with recognizable concerns. This is the history of all the people—children, enslaved people, seers, artisans, travelers, writers—who inhabited the medieval Nordic world. Encompassing not just Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, but also Iceland, Greenland, the British Isles, Continental Europe, and Russia, this is a history of a Viking Age filled with real people of different ages, genders, and ethnicities, as told through the traces that they left behind. “Embers of the hands” is a poetic kenning from the Viking Age that referred to gold. But no less precious are the embers that Barraclough blows back to life in this book—those of ordinary lives long past.
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Shortlisted for the 2025 Wolfson History Prize Longlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-fiction A Times Best History Book of the Year 2024 'Every page glittering with insight... [a] wonderful book' Dominic Sandbrook 'Brilliantly written... evokes the wonder of an entire civilisation.' Tom Holland 'Takes us beyond the familiar into a real, visceral, far more satisfying Viking world.' Dan Snow 'A fascinating tour ... Barraclough looks beyond the soap-opera sagas to those lost in the cracks of history' The New York Times It's time to meet the real Vikings. A comb, preserved in a bog, engraved with the earliest traces of a new writing system. A pagan shrine deep beneath a lava field. A note from an angry wife to a husband too long at the tavern. Doodles on birch-bark, made by an imaginative child. From these tiny embers, Eleanor Barraclough blows back to life the vast, rich and complex world of the Vikings. These are not just the stories of kings, raiders and saga heroes. Here are the lives of ordinary people: the merchants, children, artisans, enslaved people, seers, travellers and storytellers who shaped the medieval Nordic world. Immerse yourself in the day-to-day lives of an extraordinary culture that spanned centuries and spread from its Scandinavian heartlands to the remote fjords of Greenland, the Arctic wastelands, the waterways and steppes of Eurasia, all the way to the Byzantine Empire and Islamic Caliphate.

"No part of the judiciary exposes the chasm between American ideals and institutional practice like federal Indian law. In By the Fire We Carry, Nagle, a Cherokee journalist, turns a case most Americans haven’t heard of into a legal thriller." —New York Times Book Review NATIONAL BESTSELLER The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024 • Publishers Weekly Top 10 Book of the Year • NPR 2024 “Books We Loved” Pick • Esquire Best Book of the Year • Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2024 • Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard First Book Prize An “impeccably researched” (Washington Post) work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later. Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples. In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation. Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.

From the Pulitzer-prize winning, New York Times bestselling author, an alarming account of how autocracies work together to undermine the democratic world, and how we should organize to defeat them We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America. International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc, aren't linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise, which evokes George Kennan's essay calling for "containment" of the Soviet Union, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.

Winner of the 2018 Stella Prize A collective memoir of one of Aboriginal Australia’s most charismatic leaders and an epic portrait of a period in the life of a country, reminiscent in its scale and intimacy of the work of Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Svetlana Alexievich. Miles Franklin Award-winning novelist Alexis Wright returns to non-fiction in her new book, Tracker, a collective memoir of the charismatic Aboriginal leader, political thinker, and entrepreneur who died in Darwin in 2015. Taken from his family as a child and brought up in a mission on Croker Island, Tracker Tilmouth returned home to transform the world of Aboriginal politics. He worked tirelessly for Aboriginal self-determination, creating opportunities for land use and economic development in his many roles, including Director of the Central Land Council. He was a visionary and a projector of ideas, renowned for his irreverent humour and his anecdotes. His memoir has been composed by Wright from interviews with Tilmouth himself, as well as with his family, friends, and colleagues, weaving his and their stories together into a book that is as much a tribute to the role played by storytelling in contemporary Aboriginal life as it is to the legacy of a remarkable man. ‘A magnificent work of collaborative storytelling…It paints a vision of action and possibility for this continent that makes it required reading for all Australians and all those interested in this land.’ — Sydney Morning Herald ‘Wright builds, as much as anyone is able to in writing, a detailed portrait of a complex man, whose vision “to sculpt land, country and people into a brilliant future on a grand scale” is inevitably accompanied by an irrepressible humour and suspicion of authority.’ — The Guardian ‘Tilmouth was a man who worked through conversation and yarn more than with paper and pen, and this is a book about the place of the story in Indigenous culture and politics as much as it is about Tracker himself.’ — The Monthly ‘[Wright] enacts the complex relationship between self and community that a Western biography could not…There is a cumulative power in the repetitions, backtrackings and digressions the formula necessitates: a sinuous, elegant accommodation of selves. It is a book as epical in form and ambition as the life it describes.’ — The Australian ‘Wright’s brace of ineffable, awkward, uncanny novels will be unravelled and enjoyed by readers when other contemporary fiction is forgotten. Tracker, a book performed by a folk ensemble rather than a solo virtuoso, adds to her enduring non-fiction oeuvre that captures the unique ground-level realpolitik of Aboriginal Australia.’ — Australian Book Review ‘Alexis Wright is one of the most important voices in our literary landscape…This is a landmark work – epic in its scope and empathy.’ — Readings
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A breathtaking, monumental work of collective memoir from the master Alexis Wright

One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2025 One of The New Yorker's Top Books of 2025 One of Vogue's Best Books of 2025 One of the Wall Street Journal's Best Books of the Year One of the New York Public Library's Best Books of 2025 One of the Chicago Public Library's Best Books of 2025 Shortlisted for the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of the 2025 American Library in Paris Book Award Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Awards An original and revealing portrait of the misunderstood French Post-Impressionist artist. Paul Gauguin’s legend as a transgressive genius arises as much from his biography as his aesthetically daring Polynesian paintings. Gauguin is chiefly known for his pictures that eschewed convention, to celebrate the beauty of an indigenous people and their culture. In this gorgeously illustrated, myth-busting work, Sue Prideaux reveals that while Gauguin was a complicated man, his scandalous reputation is largely undeserved. Self-taught, Gauguin became a towering artist in his brief life, not just in painting but in ceramics and graphics. He fled the bustle of Paris for the beauty of Tahiti, where he lived simply and worked consistently to expose the tragic results of French Colonialism. Gauguin fought for the rights of Indigenous people, exposing French injustices and corruption in the local newspaper and acting as advocate for the Tahitian people in the French colonial courts. His unconventional career and bold, breathtaking art influenced not only Vincent van Gogh, but Matisse and Picasso. Wild Thing upends much of what we thought we knew about Gauguin through new primary research, including the resurfaced manuscript of Gauguin’s most important writing, the untranslated memoir of Gauguin’s son, and a sample of Gauguin’s teeth that disproves the pernicious myth of his syphilis. In the first full biography of Paul Gauguin in thirty years, Sue Prideaux illuminates the extraordinary oeuvre of a visionary artist vital to the French avant-garde. The result is “a brilliantly readable and compassionate study of Gauguin—not just as a painter, sculptor, carver and potter, but as a human soul perpetually searching for what is always just out of reach” (Artemis Cooper, Spectator).