Non-fiction

Educated by Tara Westover

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Educated

Prepare to laugh, cry, cringe and gasp at this fierce love letter from a daughter to her parents

Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho in a deeply dysfunctional Mormon family. Her fanatical father believed the End of Days was fast approaching, so she and her six older siblings spent every summer bottling hundreds of peaches and every winter rotating emergency supplies in the belief that when the end came her family would survive. Prevented by her parents from attending school, Tara has no birth certificate. She also has no medical records, due to her authoritarian father’s extreme aversion to hospitals and doctors of any kind. As far as the state is concerned, she doesn’t exist. Educated by Tara Westover is the remarkable story of her struggle for self-invention.

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Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

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Bad Blood

A peek into the dark corners of Silicon Valley

Twenty-one-year-old Stanford drop-out Elizabeth Holmes had a game changing idea for the health care industry, a steely determination and seductive powers of persuasion; she also had an execution problem and questionable ethics. In Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, an investigative journalist at The Wall Street Journal, we get the shocking story of Theranos, the largest health care start-up fraud in recent history. A page turning real-life thriller.

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The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard

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The Order of the Day

Sleepwalking into disaster

What really happened in the 1938 meeting when Hitler told the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg to roll over or be rolled over? Or during the dinner at 10 Downing Street where Foreign Minister Ribbentropp waxed lyrical about macaroons while watching Chamberlain receive the news that Germany had invaded Austria? In The Order of the Day by Eric Vulliard, the author has pieced together the facts, filled in the gaps and created a fascinating and frightening account of a sleepwalk into disaster.

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Books for Christmas 2018

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Books are for life, not just for Christmas

People who put up Christmas decorations early are happier and more in touch with their inner child than those who don’t, according to a recent report by psychologists. I love this news as I am a bit of a self-confessed Christmas fanatic. Perhaps it’s the Scandinavian in me, but I just can’t get enough of sweet covered gingerbread houses, candlelit windowsills, roaring fireplaces, the smell of incense and mulled wine. So no surprise then that suggesting books as Christmas presents is one of my absolute favourite things to do.

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Becoming by Michelle Obama

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Becoming

A feel good memoir written with warmth, humour and self-deprecation

The memoir of a First Lady is not usually something I would run to the bookshop for, but in the case of Michelle Obama, I was intrigued. I wanted to know if she really is as kind, warm, intelligent, accomplished, empathic and eloquent as she has come across since the day she set her foot in the White House. And, if this book is to be believed, she is! A feel good book written with warmth, humour and self-deprecation.

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21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Harari

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21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Not perfect but an accessible catalyst for thought

Fans of Homo Sapiens and Homo Deus will no doubt run to buy the latest instalment: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Harari. Whereas Homo Sapiens dealt with the past and Homo Deus with the future, his last book – you guessed it – is about now. Harari has an enviable ability to present complex ideas, however depressing, with clarity and humour. I don’t necessarily buy into all of his theories and sometimes I wish he’d gone into more depth. The book suffers from being a collection of essays written for various publications rather than a coherently planned book. (Do I smell a faint whiff of publishers’ opportunism?) But the fact that he engages millions of people around the world in thinking about ‘big issues’ is a redeeming factor for me. Read it as an accessible catalyst for your own thoughts.

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Would You Let Your Wife Read This Book? by Sylvia Bedford

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Would you let your wife read this book?

A book in the dock

Many of you will have read D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and even those who haven’t might be familiar with the controversy around the book. The story, written in 1928, is about an adulterous relationship between an upper-class woman and a gamekeeper. The description of sex was so raunchy that the book wasn’t even published.

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The Wonder Down Under – A User’s Guide to the Vagina

All the things you never dared ask

It’s time to demystify the female genitals. Oslo-based medical students and sex educators Dr Nina Brochmann and Ellen Støkken Dahl have decided to lift the veil. With frankness and humour, Brochmann and Dahl tackle periods, discharge, douchebags, contraception, fertility and sex, in all shapes and forms, plus a host of other issues. A breath of fresh air from two hugely inspirational young women, The Wonder Down Under – A User’s Guide to the Vagina has been translated to 33 languages and sailed straight onto the German and French best-seller lists. Is Britain ready for it?

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The Unfinished Palazzo – Life, Love and Art in Venice

Gloriously gossipy biography of one grand palazzo and three extraordinary women

Accompanying me over Christmas were three glorious women all of whom, at different points, called a grand palazzo in Venice their home. An eccentric, reclusive countess, a gold-digging seductress and an art-collecting heiress. The Unfinished Palazzo is a hugely entertaining biography which firmly sits in the ‘you-couldn’t-have-made-it-up’ category. If you’re looking to brighten up January, this will do!

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Silence – In the Age of Noise

A peaceful little must-read

Do yourself a favour. Take a moment out from whatever you have to do (now is the perfect time, as we approach the Christmas rush at work, school and home) and read this little book. It’s written by Erling Kagge, a publisher, writer and the first person to reach the North Pole, South Pole and climb Mount Everest. Kagge knows a thing or two about silence, having spent 50 days alone on his trek to the South Pole.

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