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Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"We started to use new methods in peace-building education; by using art, photography and new technologies, we develop multimedia projects that incorporate storytelling and historical remembrance."
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Bosnia

The best books on Bosnia, focusing particularly on the 1990s war and its cultural and humanitarian consequences.

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November 25, 2025 at 10:01 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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“I wanted to write about what it means to grow up, to have to rely on your older brothers for wisdom and outlook on life.”
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Boyhood and Growing Up

The award-winning author says the family unit, like a country, can only be destroyed from within. He chooses the five best books on boyhood and growing up.

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November 25, 2025 at 7:01 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"Low-wage countries should theoretically be expected to catch up with the leaders on the back of technology adoption and capital investment. Still, perplexingly, there’ve been only halting signs of economic convergence."
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The Great Divergence

Why did Europe move ahead of the rest of the world in the early modern period? Books on 'the great divergence,' recommended by Davis Kedrosky

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November 25, 2025 at 4:03 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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NEW: The best new science books for kids, recommended by Tamsin Mather, chair of the 2025 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize judging panel fivebooks.com/best-books/b...

Best New Science Books for Children: Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2025

The best new science books for kids: the 2025 Royal Society book prize shortlist, introduced by Professor Tamsin Mather

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November 25, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"I look for two things in a great book: great writing skill, technical brilliance if you like, or a soaring imagination, but also how the book makes me feel, particularly if it makes me feel things deeply."
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Modern Classics

Five of the best 'modern classic' books, as recommended by the Lake District shepherd and bestselling author James Rebanks

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November 25, 2025 at 12:02 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"A lot of the choices we make with environmental impact are now choices we make consciously. We can ask what kind of world we want."
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Climate Change Innovation

Environmental studies professor Roger Pielke Jr says innovation is the only way to reverse climate change and chooses five books on the subject.

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November 25, 2025 at 6:00 AM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"I don’t think we really think enough about what children do and why they do it. We make too many judgments and pronouncements."
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Child Psychology and Mental Health

Clinical psychologist, author and broadcaster discusses the stigmas attached to mental health problems, and asks whether, as a society, we are really doing what's best for our children

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November 25, 2025 at 2:01 AM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"Very unusually for his time, he is interested particularly in the science not just of what we see but of why something looks the way that it does in terms of our acts of seeing."
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Leonardo da Vinci

Every generation has its own Leonardo, and for many he remains a man of mystery. Professor Martin Kemp discusses the best books on Leonardo da Vinci.

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November 24, 2025 at 10:01 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"When did human beings first become literate? Who was able to read in different societies – men or women, adults or children, masters or slaves?"
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The History of Reading

We can learn about the past not just through what was written but how it was read. Historian of books Leah Price tells us about reading aloud in Roman times, Gutenberg-era marginalia, and Middle Age…

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November 24, 2025 at 7:30 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"It is sort of like a long-running love affair or being married for a long time. You constantly find new things out about your partner."
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Paris

The best books on Paris, as recommended by long-time Paris resident and American author David Downie. Discover the quintessential Paris with this reading list.

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November 24, 2025 at 4:03 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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NEW: "We need a strong movement of people insisting that medicine and society take muscle seriously" Michael Gross, author of the brilliant "Stronger" (@duttonbooks.bsky.social) on why muscles are so important for our health:
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The Best Strength Books

In Stronger, Michael Joseph Gross, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, investigates strength in all its dimensions. Over the decade he spent reporting it, Gross interviewed scientists, athletes,…

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November 24, 2025 at 3:00 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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“We invent the Shakespeare that we want or that speaks to our time”
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Shakespeare's Reception

The best books on Shakespeare's reception or after-life, recommended by Shakespeare scholar Emma Smith of the University of Oxford

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November 24, 2025 at 12:01 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"What’s the role of the theater? In some ways, the whole project of editing a book of plays is contrary to the fluidity that those texts would have in the theater."
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Shakespeare's Reception

The best books on Shakespeare's reception or after-life, recommended by Shakespeare scholar Emma Smith of the University of Oxford

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November 24, 2025 at 6:00 AM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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“Data doesn’t speak for itself. We need to speak for the data”
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The Best Math Books of 2019

The best math and mathematics books of 2019, recommended by leading expert Kit Yates, Senior Lecturer in mathematical biology at the University of Bath.

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November 24, 2025 at 2:00 AM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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“Lawrence’s writings are very intimately bound up with his life”
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The Best D.H. Lawrence Books

Although less flamboyantly experimental than his contemporaries Joyce and Woolf, D H Lawrence too was a modernist, says literary scholar Catherine Brown.

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November 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"We’ve abandoned the model whereby everyone is aspiring to make a copy of grand red Bordeaux or white Burgundy. We can choose from all sorts of weird and wonderful wines and different provenances."
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Wine

The best wine books, as recommended by the Financial Times wine critic, Jancis Robinson. Wine is nothing if not geography in a bottle, she says.

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November 23, 2025 at 7:00 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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“Unlike in Aristotle’s time, now, science can help to improve our character”
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Character Development

The best books on character development, recommended by Angela Duckworth – author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverence

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November 23, 2025 at 4:00 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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“Liberalism itself, as a principle, needs to be defended against both the critiques from the right and the left”
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Liberal Democracy

The best books on liberal democracy and how to better understand it in the world today, recommended by political scientist Francis Fukuyama.

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November 23, 2025 at 12:00 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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“One of the aspects of testing that has really changed over the last two decades is the awareness that testing what people know is not as easy as it seems.”
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Educational Testing

The best books on educational testing, as recommended by educational psychologist Jacqueline Leighton.

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November 23, 2025 at 6:00 AM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"In so far as it’s important to know about what the seas were like in ancient times, trilobites were one of the most important animals living there."
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Palaeontology

Palaeontologist, Richard Fortey, discusses his favourite books on the subject of palaeontology in a fascinating interview with Five Books.

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November 23, 2025 at 2:00 AM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"Sharia [Islamic law] doesn’t acknowledge the legal personality of groups and tends to appeal essentially to individual conscience and piety."
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Islamism

The best books on Islamism, as recommended by author and academic Malise Ruthven

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November 22, 2025 at 10:01 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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“She doesn’t need any introduction, but if you were to need an introduction to Nadiya, this would be the book”
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The Best Baking Cookbooks of 2021

Best cookbooks of 2021 with a focus on baking books, chosen by Becky Krystal of the Washington Post, staff writer of its Voraciously column

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November 22, 2025 at 7:00 PM

Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations

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"There are between 400 and 500 nuclear power plants in the world, and they have an average age of about 40 years. So, a great many of them are going to be shut down in the next decade and the construction needed just to replace those is quite a big challenge."
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