Five Books's Reading List

"Daniel Levitin’s Music as Medicine: How We Can Harness Its Therapeutic Power — a follow-up to his 2006 hit, This is Your Brain on Music —offers an overview of the potential healing properties of music, and its apparent ability to soothe the symptoms of conditions as diverse as Alzheimers’ Disease and chronic pain. Music As Medicine was featured on our site earlier this year when it was shortlisted for the 2025 Royal Society Book Prize , which celebrates the best popular science books of the year. As the botanist Sandra Knapp, chair of the judges, explained: “One of the real messages that comes from this is that there is no one-size-fits-all. Music as medicine is highly personal. Something that works for you might not work for your wife, your brother, your sister, your child. There are certain things about every person’s brain that work in particular logical and electrical shapes. So how this work depends on the individual.”"

"Talk: The Science of Communication and the Art of Being Ourselves , by the Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks, is a warm and suitably conversational self-help book that delves into the underlying structures of dialogue in search of small improvements that might nevertheless make profound impacts on our attempts to connect, bond and collaborate with others. Talk summarises studies of parole hearings, speed dates, and dozens of other human encounters, drawing from Wood Brooks’ oversubscribed course ‘How to talk gooder in business and in life’ , sharing her insights with those who can’t—or don’t want to—undertake a MBA."

"There is also a cluster of new books about creativity by contemporary writers that you may find will help you in your own creative practice. Suleika Jaouad, author of the deeply moving memoir Between Two Kingdoms , returns with The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life , a tribute and guide to the art of journaling, both as therapy and art form. The book draws from her popular Substack, The Isolation Journals , which started in lockdown and in which she “reached out to the most remarkable people I knew, asking them to contribute an essay and an accompanying prompt.” Contributors include celebrity authors like Salman Rushdie, George Saunders and Elizabeth Gilbert, as well as cancer survivors and convicts. The poet Maggie Smith published Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life , a book of practical, craft-focused advice generated over a twenty-year teaching career. And, in the UK, the popular newspaper columnist and novelist India Knight offers her take on how to apply one’s style and taste to interiors with Home: How To Love It, Live In It, And Find Joy In It ."

"Sure! In Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can’t Look Away , Coltan Scrivner—described as “a behavioural scientist and horror entertainment producer,” an unholy combination if ever I’ve heard one—explores the very human fascination with serial killers, slasher flicks, and everything that goes bump in the night in this lively work of popular science. Spooky stories and horror movies are a manifestation, he argues, of an evolutionarily-driven psychological function that prepares us for real danger. Steven Pinker praised it as “A fascinating examination of a feature of human nature that all of us have, most of us deplore (at least in others), and few of us understand.” A fun and surprisingly illuminating read for those who love to be scared witless—and would like to know why."

"Asked by a friend who the greatest character in literature was, Joyce replied that, obviously, it was Odysseus—the all-around man. Thus was born Ulysses , the Roman name for Odysseus. Joyce’s man is Leopold Bloom, and in Ulysses , the 24 books of Homer’s Odyssey become 18 discrete episodes. (You’ll finish it having both a favorite book—mine’s Nausicaa—and one [or a few] you found interminable—for me, Proteus or The Oxen of the Sun). It’s challenging, learned, filthy, and hilarious. In it, Joyce pushes the boundaries of language and the novel form. It’s easy to see how it was thwarted and censored four times during publication. At first, no one wanted to print it, because they could’ve been found liable for publishing pornography (enter Sylvia Beach, owner of the famous Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company .) Ulysses is one of those great novels that demands a level of concentration one can only get in isolation. Yes, it’s difficult and frustrating, but that’s because it wants to frustrate you—and the payoff is immense pleasure: no book gets closer to the ineffable experience of human play and tragedy, of being a fleshy mass of blood and bones in the modern world. It pays dividends for the reader who pays it serious attention. Reading Joyce, you feel incredibly close to the mind of a writer whose conviction was that he could do anything with language; no novel I’ve ever read has been more daring or eye-opening. (Though, if you start on Ulysses and find it’s just too hard going, I’d recommend picking up Dubliners or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ; they’re better introductions to him.) As for actually reading it, I recommend Jeri Johnson’s Oxford World’s Classics edition (above) or the more expansive Gabler edition , which includes thousands of corrections to earlier iterations. Ulysses is chock full of allusions, jokes and tricks the modern reader may not understand, so you’ll also want to get your hands on two guides that I kept within reach at all times when I was reading it. The first is Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford and Robert J Seidman; it’s the most extensive guide by far for breaking down each and every word, phrase, allusion in the book, as well as providing cogent summaries of all the episodes. Reading it cover to cover slowed me down quite a bit while reading Ulysses , but I don’t regret it, for without it I could’ve never gotten the historical context. The Bloomsday Book by Harry Blamires is also useful for summaries; it’s like an intelligent version of Spark Notes (which is no knock against it). —Stephanie Kelley, Literary Editor"

"Classics of literature often seem intimidating, especially when they’re long. What’s interesting about them is that often they’re very easy reads, especially once you adjust to the language, which normally takes a few chapters. For me, War and Peace was, literally, a beach read. I read it on holiday the year I turned 19. I spent the days on the beach clutching it in the sand. At night, I stayed awake in the hut where we were staying to find out what happened next by the light of a small lamp, long after everyone else had gone to sleep and trying my best not to disturb anyone. War and Peace is work of historical fiction that Tolstoy began in 1863—when he was 35 and recently married with a newborn baby—and it looked back to the Napoleonic invasion of Russia half a century before. As editor of Five Books, I’ve spent a lot of energy adding information to our War and Peace page , looking at how it was initially reviewed, what Tolstoy himself said about it, which translation is best and giving my personal take on it. So many experts we’ve interviewed have recommended it and it is an immensely significant book. But, at the end of the day, the reason to read it is that it’s just such pleasurable escapism into a world that’s gone forever. A brutal world, perhaps, when examined by the cold light of day, but still an immensely glamorous and romantic one. One additional thought on War and Peace and long reads: the book is such an institution, that often when describing another book they love people will say, “This is the War and Peace of…” For example, military historian Antony Beevor called Life and Fate by the Soviet journalist Vasily Grossman “the War and Peace of the 20th century.” It also works across cultures, so The Tale of Genji (which is by a woman, thank goodness) is described as the War and Peace of Japan or The Story of the Stone is the War and Peace of China. If you’re War and Peace obsessed, it’s a nice way of expanding your reading in new directions. —Sophie Roell, Editor"

"Tom Jones by Henry Fielding was published in 1749. At nearly 350,000 words, it is quite a brick of a book. In the 271 years since its publication, it has not aged, nor been surpassed. It is the easiest read in the world, the perfect boy-meets-girl story, a romcom-come-social satire set in Hanoverian England, Hogarth set to words. No wonder it has been turned into numerous films and formed the basis of no less than three different operas. The hero of the book, Tom, is a foundling (bastard) who is brought up by the kindly and judicious Squire Allworthy. Tom is good natured, kind and honourable, but also hot-headed, impetuous and randy. As if that weren’t enough to deal with, other characters, jealous of Allworthy’s affections for Tom, conspire to do him down. Tom has to leave home and gets flung by fate into all kinds of scrapes and, indeed, at one point, prison. Tom loves Sophia Western, the daughter of Allworthy’s Somerset neighbour, Squire Western. Sophia loves Tom. But it seems impossible that they can be together, given Tom’s illegitimate status. Misunderstanding and mistaken identities abound. It wouldn’t be fair to give any more of the plot away, except to say that the name Sophia means ‘wisdom’, and that this is a tale about a young man who is fundamentally good, but not always wise. Can he put that right? This is one of the very few books I have ever read that is literally unputdownable. I stopped reading occasionally to eat and sleep, but that was all. —Ben King, History & Economics Editor"

"One vast novel I can wholly recommend is Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety (870pp), her doorstop work of historical fiction about the French Revolution. It’s a remarkable work, deeply steeped in history and the politics of the era, but both immersive and evocative. It follows Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Maximilien Robespierre from childhood, through the drama of the revolution and the political morass that follows, until the bloody dissolution of their alliance. Through the interweaving of their intellectual, familial and sexual pursuits, Mantel paints fully realised portraits of these three brilliant, complicated men (and a huge supporting cast). In the introductory note, Mantel writes: “I have tried to write a novel that gives the reader scope to change opinions, change sympathies: a book that one can think and live inside.” She has succeeded entirely. I still dream about this book. And – briefly – one more, if you’ll allow me: Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch , which won her a Pulitzer, is another mammoth contemporary novel I can personally recommend. It’s a sensational, sprawling book, in the Dickensian mould: full of rough diamonds, drama and terrible hardships. It’s well worth your time. —Cal Flyn, Deputy Editor"

"Another from me! Middlemarch is staggeringly brilliant, but it’s a labour of love—it’ll take even the most diligent weeks to read. For those new to George Eliot and a little intimidated by this hefty brick, The Mill on the Floss is shorter and lovely, as is Adam Bede , also very readable. But just like there’s nothing wrong with getting to know Henry James by reading The Portrait of a Lady (rather than the shorter Daisy Miller or Washington Square ), there’s nothing wrong with starting with this one. Unlike Ulysses , the prose of this one isn’t difficult, per se ; on the contrary, George Eliot’s macrocosmic fictional world, perched on the cusp of the Victorian Industrial Revolution, is warm, welcoming, approachable, and enveloping. It’s one thing to enjoy a book, and quite another to to cherish the time spent with a set of characters. I’m envious of anyone getting to know Dorothea Brooke, Tertius Lydgate, Mary Garth and Casaubon for the first time. If I could wipe my memory clean and go back and reread it fresh, I would. —Stephanie Kelley, Literary Editor"

"Choose Your Own Disaster by Dana Schwartz is an example of an innovatively-structured book that particularly benefits from the ebook format. It’s a sharp and entertaining memoir of the author’s misspent twenties in the form of a personality test cum choose-your-own-adventure book. Rather than turning to page 264, then page 45, then page 178, one can simply click on the links and be whisked on to the next stage; it lends the reading experience a computer-game feel. It’s a lot of fun. Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City is Chinese author Fang Fang’s chronicle of her daily life as Covid-19 emerged in her home city in early 2020. Her daily posts—made originally via Chinese social media—were rapidly translated into English and turned into a ebook. In November 2020, a print version of Wuhan Diary appeared, but as is often the case with time-sensitive subjects, ebooks are quicker to turn around, so you can be reading months earlier if you’re happy with the digital format."

"Another great time to turn to an ebook is when you’re reading a doorstopper. It’s too tough on the wrists to hold the print book up when you’re reading it in bed and it’s not a lot of fun carting it around town either. Infinite Jest is David Foster Wallace’s novel about tennis, drug abuse and much more, which novelist Chad Harbach called “the major American novel of the past 25 years.” Two reasons we’ve put it on our list of books that are easier to read as ebooks. Firstly, it is large: more than 1,000 pages, but when it’s on your Kindle, you can still fit it in your pocket. Another reason is that Infinite Jest has endnotes, not footnotes, so you have to do a lot of flicking back and forth. It’s a lot quicker to flip back and forth to endnotes on a Kindle. Simply click the hyperlink, leap forward to the relevant endnote, then leap back to your place in the text."

"Ebooks are great for learning to read in a foreign language and, as a good book to start out with, Five Books contributing editor Ben King has selected L’Etranger , by the great French existentialist author Albert Camus. Translators are constantly making difficult decisions about how to render words in English—including, even, L’Etranger’s opening lines—so it’s almost always better to read a great work of literature in the original, if you can. Normally, when you embark on reading books in a language you’ve studied, you need a dictionary to hand for the many new words you come across, which makes the going prohibitively slow and boring. With ebooks, you can have a dictionary open permanently. Whenever you come across a word, you simply press it and the translation—along with the full dictionary entry, to check idiomatic usage etc—appears instantly. If you studied French at school, there’s no reason not to have a go at L’Etranger . It’s reasonably short and the French is reasonably simple. Impress yourself!"

"Mary Ann Evans, who went by the pen name George Eliot, was not only a great novelist but also a fine philosopher, as American philosopher Rebecca Goldstein put it in her interview with us on the best philosophical novels. Not surprisingly, Middlemarch has been recommended multiple times on Five Books, whether as one of the very best novels ever written in English, or as one of the most helpful books for insight into the ethical dilemmas and pressures of our daily lives. For these reasons, deputy editor Cal Flyn chose to publish it for the Five Books Essentials range, though it’s also long (800+ pages), so also quite a good one to read as an ebook for convenience purposes. OK, it’s true that it’s not strictly necessary to read John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty as an ebook, but we’ve included it because it is the first ebook published by Five Books. Our deputy editor Cal Flyn, who runs the ‘Five Books Essentials’ publishing project, chose it because it’s the book that’s been most frequently recommended by experts on Five Books. For the ebook, she’s written a really nice introduction, pulling together some of the reasons why it’s considered so important. And it remains timely: as the democratic world continues to impose heavy restrictions on citizens’ freedoms to prevent the spread of disease, On Liberty ’s arguments about the legitimate extent of government action may take on a fresh importance."

"The Truths We Hold is Kamala Harris’s memoir, published in 2019. It’s really a manifesto, an account of the issues she cares about, interspersed with the story of her personal life. Her parents were both immigrants, her mother from southern India, her father from Jamaica. They met as students in Berkeley and were both involved in the civil rights movement. They split up when she was five, and Kamala was mainly brought up by her mother. The memoir chronicles her career as a ‘progressive’ public prosecutor, culminating in a stint as District Attorney for California, and finally her election as Senator. This is a deeply impressive story, told in a matter of fact way, and an excellent book to read if you want to know who Kamala Harris is, what she’s about and what she’s likely to set out to achieve when she’s in office."

"Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea is aimed at children aged 4 to 8 and written by Meena Harris, who, if you’ve read The Truths We Hold (above), you’ll already know is Kamala Harris’s niece. To be more specific, she’s the daughter of Kamala’s beloved younger sister, Maya. The book tells the story of the two sisters being determined to get a playground in the courtyard behind their house, and not taking no for an answer. The illustrations by Ana Ramírez González are absolutely stunning and it’s a lovely tale for young kids of what you can achieve if you put your mind to it."

"Superheroes are Everywhere by Kamala Harris is a version of her memoir aimed at 3-7 year olds . We meet her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who was not only an incredibly impressive biomedical researcher working on breast cancer, but also a superhero mother to her two girls. She writes: “See, Kamala, my mom would say, You can do anything if you put your heart in it and try hard, anything in the world”. After meeting the other superheroes in her life, she makes a list of ways you, too, can become a superhero. Apparently, “it’s easier than you think.”"

"Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice is a biography of Kamala aimed at 4-8 year olds . We don’t learn anything substantially new (her name means ‘Lotus Flower’; when she was being cranky once as a toddler and her mother asked her what she wanted, she answered “freedom”), but it’s beautifully done. It also opens with the notion that Kamala Harris wants to be president one day, and that other girls too, can aspire to be president. As we now know, this really is no longer beyond the realms of possibility."

"This version of Kamala Harris’s memoir is aimed at kids aged 12-15 . It’s very similar in content and style to the adult version, but shorter. This might be the best book to read if you want to read Kamala Harris’s own version of the story of her life in a couple of hours."