Looking for something new to read? Browse our non-fiction picks for April! Includes books about extraordinary women of history, delicious healthy recipes, stories of second-hand books and more.
Want more suggested books? Take a look at our recommendations.
Thoughtlands: Walking in Writers’ Suffolk
Jacky Colliss Harvey
This is a work about walking and writing: about walkers who wrote, and writers who walk.
It is about the circuit that exists between mind and feet, and about landscapes that exist both physically in front of you and in a line of words.
And since all this walking and writing and thinking must have somewhere to take place, it is also a book about Suffolk, the author’s birthplace, and how writers have used and responded to its unmistakable magic.
Jan Morris: A Life
Sara Wheeler
When Jan Morris joined the 1953 Everest expedition and was first to get news of the ascent back to London, she became the most famous journalist in the world. So began a glittering career covering the Eichmann trial, interviewing Che Guevara and scooping the story of Suez collusion.
Morris transitioned in the early seventies and documented the experience in Conundrum. She was a pioneer and her books, including ‘Venice’ and the ‘Pax Britannica’ trilogy, have inspired readers across the globe.
Here, renowned travel writer and biographer Sara Wheeler uncovers the complexity of this 20th-century icon to reveal a mosaic of contradictions. Morris’s work conjured the spirit of place, yet her late masterpiece Trieste celebrates ‘the meaning of nowhere’; she was a Welsh nationalist who wasn’t Welsh; a preacher of kindness with a cruel side.
This is a portrait of an astonishing life, and a scintillating story of longing, travel and never reaching home.
The Nuremberg Women: At the Trial That Brought the Nazis to Justice
Natalie Livingstone
The most famous trial of the twentieth century – told through the eyes of the women history forgot.
In November 1945, the world turned its gaze to Nuremberg. Inside a courtroom built by and for men, justice was being sought for crimes almost beyond comprehension. The spotlight fell on Nazi leaders, Allied prosecutors and military judges – but in the shadows, women were recording, interpreting, witnessing, painting, testifying. Yet their names were often missing from the headlines.
Eighty years on, this book finally returns them to the centre of the story. The work follows eight extraordinary figures: a young Soviet interpreter balancing political survival with truth-telling; a British painter capturing justice in oils; a French resistance fighter who survived Auschwitz to confront her persecutors; a Hungarian countess hosting both Nazis and survivors in a single house.
Find Your Healthy: 100 Delicious Recipes With a Side of Science
Sophie Gastman
Sophie Gastman RNutr (@sophiethenutritionist) is here to make healthy eating less confusing – and a lot more enjoyable.
Forget the fads and food rules – these are healthy recipes grounded in real science, real flavour and zero restriction. With 100 delicious, nutritionist-designed recipes and simple, myth-busting breakdowns of the common misconceptions that shape how we think about food – this is your all-in-one handbook for eating well without overthinking it.
Split into four chapters – Carbs, Protein, Fats and Sugar – each one tackles the biggest myths around that food group (Can we eat carbs before bed? Is sugar addictive?) before serving up simple recipes that show you how to enjoy it without guilt.
Her flavour-packed recipes for breakfast, dinner and dessert will leave you full, satisfied, and actually excited to cook.
The Great Good Places
Margaret Drabble
We all age differently, some stoically, some angrily, some calmly, some with an unfailing spirit of adventure and an undimmed curiosity.
From one of our finest literary voices, this book is a collection of essays, stories and memoir that traverses the experience of growing older and looking back on a life deeply lived.
Drawing on decades of reading, writing and observation, Margaret Drabble reflects on the complex business of ageing, the strange workings of memory – its wonders and its fragility – and on the ‘great good places’, the childhood homes, coastal sanctuaries and cherished libraries that shape who we are.
Rich with a lifetime’s worth of insight and wisdom and peppered with Drabble’s trademark lucidity and wit, this volume is an elegantly layered and profoundly moving meditation on time, place and the enduring power of recollection.
Finders, Keepers: The Secret Life of Second-Hand Books
Nicholas Royle
‘Finders, Keepers’ tells the stories that hide between the lines of the second-hand books that fill the shelves of charity shops and second-hand bookshops up and down the country.
The author collects books. He collects books that contain bookmarks in the form of maps – he will read the book while walking the streets depicted on the map, provided he doesn’t have to get on a plane to get there. He collects books given as Christmas presents. He collects books that have the same title as other books – he’ll read both books and compare them.
He might wonder – he might even ask – which one has the greater claim on the title. He collects books that he finds with business cards in them – instead of reading the book, he sends it to the individual named on the business card and asks them to read it instead. He collects ex-library books. He collects free books. He looks at the books that people leave out on their garden wall in the rain.
How to Lay an Egg With a Horse Inside: An Alternative Guide to Writing and Enjoying Poetry
Brian Bilston
Why do we write poetry? Who should write it? And where do you even start?
Well, Brian Bilston, one of the UK’s most hilarious and best-loved poets, is here to take us through the hows, whys and whats of reading, writing and enjoying poetry every day.
With his characteristic wit and charm, Bilston accompanies us through the jungle of imagination to the source of inspiration, takes us under the bonnet of a sonnet and over the fear of literary devices. He gives us a whirlwind tour through the history of verse, and shows us why human poetry will always triumph over any attempts by AI.
Showcasing over a hundred brand new poems, and including practical critiques of some of his greatest hits, every page is an immensely pleasurable deep-dive into the life-affirming craft of poetry and a passionate argument for why we should all pick up a pen.