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Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations
@fivebooks.com
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Five Books is a book recommendation website where experts pick the five best books in their subject (as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases) http://fivebooks.com
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“When he stepped into a rural southern courtroom as chief lawyer of the NAACP, people didn’t know how to treat him.”
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Race and the Law
Kenneth W. Mack, the  Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law at Harvard University, discusses the warring ideals of egalitarianism and exclusion at the heart of US politics and law, from the founding of…
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November 21, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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"Another reason to read a celebrity memoir is to put the recent past into historical perspective."
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The Best New Celebrity Memoirs
While it's easy to dismiss celebrity memoirs as offering cheap, voyeuristic thrills into the lives of famous people we like the look of, when they're done well, they can give insight into challenges…
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November 21, 2025 at 4:30 PM
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“He had a religious-like reverence for the concept of a creator, even though he did not believe in a personal God”
Einstein
From the Swiss patent applications that helped inspire his thinking on relativity to the scientist he fell madly in love with but later divorced, biographer Walter Isaacson recommends books on the…
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November 21, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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“The US often needs to make a choice between its principles and its bottom line”
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Geoeconomics
Former state department official and fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Jennifer M. Harris, picks the best books for understanding geoeconomics.
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November 21, 2025 at 12:01 PM
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"Goddesses often didn’t come out very well in Greek mythology, and I think Persephone is possibly the one who does best."
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The Best Hades and Persephone Retellings
Bestselling author Melinda Salisbury recommends five retellings of the beloved ancient Greek myth of Hades and Persephone
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November 21, 2025 at 6:00 AM
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"Yes, solar power is viable. It works very well. You put a solar panel out in the sun and it will last for at least 20 years."
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Solar Power
The best books on solar power, as recommended by author and journalist Bob Johnstone.
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November 21, 2025 at 2:30 AM
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NEW

We asked Dave Zeltserman, author of Small Crimes, to recommend five brilliant American detective novels. His choices run from a 1920s small town murder mystery to a 1980s postmodern trilogy by Paul Auster

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American Detective Novels
Five of the best American detective novels, as selected by Dave Zeltserman, author of Small Crimes and The Caretaker of Lorne Field.
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November 20, 2025 at 10:30 PM
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"Even though, in 1831, there was legislation prohibiting the slave trade to Brazil, it continued for almost 20 years. In that period of time, more than one million enslaved Africans were brought to Brazil."
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The History of Brazil and Slavery
Historian Ana Lucia Araujo talks us through the books that shed light on Brazil's slave trade and its connections with Africa.
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November 20, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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"Mars is obviously a dead planet because there’s nothing in the atmosphere which hasn’t been there for millions of years."
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The Environment
The British author, journalist and environmental activist talks to us about climate change. Warns that mankind has become a global catastrophe and discusses books that reveal our impact on the planet
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November 20, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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"An optimist is someone who is aware that even though things are likely to go wrong occasionally, they will be able to cope with them."
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Optimism
The psychologist and professor of cognitive neuroscience, Elaine Fox, reveals the benefits of positive thinking—if grounded in realism. Some of us may be genetically predisposed towards pessimism,…
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November 20, 2025 at 4:04 PM
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"Displacement can be a route to fresh new opportunities: some economic migrants voluntarily pack their bags to move to the other side of the world to take up a job opportunity. And they’re doing it happily, with ambition, with zest."
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Displacement
Travel editor Michelle Jana Chan discusses five brilliant novels that deal with the theme of displacement, including work by Adichie, Rushdie and Conrad.
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November 20, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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"In politics you have a very short time – between 30 and 60 days, depending on what country you’re in, from the announcement of the election to election day. You have to deliver the message to peak on election day."
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How to Win Elections
The campaigning expert explains what it is that makes a successful political campaign. Highlights The Election Game And How To Win It as the bible for all political consultants
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November 20, 2025 at 2:30 PM
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“I want children to understand, from a very young age, that we all have to work together for a better tomorrow”
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The Best Antiracist Books for Kids
The best antiracist books for kids, as recommended by Paula Young Shelton, children's author, first grade teacher and child of the Civil Rights Movement.
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November 20, 2025 at 12:30 PM
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"English fans will sing along against Germany: ‘Two world wars and one World Cup…’ and a lot of them not only weren’t alive for the wars, they weren’t even alive for the 1966 World Cup."
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World Football
The author and journalist makes his selection of the best books on World Football. Features volumes from Simon Kuper and Alex Bellos, as well as a cracking investigation into FIFA corruption
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November 20, 2025 at 6:30 AM
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“The real story in education since the Second World War is that school became ubiquitous in the world.”
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Sex Education
The best sex education books, as recommended by Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education.
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November 20, 2025 at 2:00 AM
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"Gender is an aspect of identity that we acquire: we work with or against mainstream cultural interpretations of being female and male."
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Motherhood in Literature
The novelist, playwright and poet Deborah Levy chooses works that most accurately portray the infamously fraught mother-daughter relationship.
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November 19, 2025 at 10:01 PM
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"First of all you need to understand your insecurities and why you have them. Secondly you have to accept that they’re part of you... Thirdly, people with insecurities need a map to help them find a way forward."
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Overcoming Insecurities
Most self-help books promise to take you from 0 to 100, but many people reading them are starting at minus 100. The author of What's Stopping You? picks books that helped him come to grips with his…
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November 19, 2025 at 7:30 PM
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"His [Christopher Lloyd's] garden at Great Dixter was a monument to his gardening skills and sometimes outrageous ideas."
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Plants and Plant Hunting
The author, plantsman and rhododendron expert selects his favourite books on botanical exploration and explains his passion for plant hunting
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November 19, 2025 at 7:30 PM
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"Especially in the last ten years, there’s been a real renaissance in feminism and feminist publishing, but VIDA publishes statistics every year about gender and publishing and it’s still skewed."
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The Best Feminist Books: 50 Years of Virago Press
This week Virago Press celebrates its 50th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the international feminist publisher is reissuing one iconic book from each decade of its existence. Sarah Savitt,…
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November 19, 2025 at 4:01 PM
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"I want writing that can make this activity, which is so completely familiar to me, feel fresh."
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Fishing
Five of the best books on fishing, as recommended by Malachy Tallack—keen angler and author of the memoir Illuminated By Water
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November 19, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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"Portal fantasy is any story in which characters leave one world to enter another. Often it’s our world that they leave behind, but not always."
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The Best Portal Fantasy Books
In portal fantasy, characters leave one world for another – satisfying a yearning we all share, says fantasy novelist and Five Books fantasy editor Sylvia Bishop. She introduces us to five…
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November 19, 2025 at 12:01 PM
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"Most violence today isn’t done by a single person. It is usually organised by many people and this enables them to take less responsibility for what they do."
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Violence and Torture
Political scientist Darius Rejali gives a harrowing interview on the effects of violence, torture and trauma on the human being.
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November 19, 2025 at 6:30 AM
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NEW
We asked the novelist Stephanie Merritt, one of the judges of the 2025 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, to talk us through the eight books in the running for the title of the funniest book of the year.

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The Funniest Books of 2025
Every year, the judges of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction draw up a shortlist of books that made them laugh out loud. We asked the novelist Stephanie Merritt, one of the 2025…
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November 19, 2025 at 2:30 AM
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"You can imagine being at home on a blowy November evening and creating a meal from whatever you happen to have lying around in the fridge."
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Cooking
The author and food writer talks about honey pancakes, mushy peas, drop scones, choux pastry, baked onions and Winnie the Pooh. Perfect lunch-break reading (as long as you're having a good lunch)
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November 19, 2025 at 2:00 AM
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"In China people are not used to eating huge hunks of meat. So a whole steak on a plate with chips is not really a meal."
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Chinese Food
The English chef who studied cooking in Sichuan tells us that there is no one Chinese cuisine, how Western perceptions of Chinese food are changing, and why carrots are called "barbarian radishes" in…
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November 18, 2025 at 10:01 PM