Reading (Non-Fiction) Archive

The table below gives the title and author of each book we have read since the group began in April 2018. For the most recent books there is also the average score of out of ten (and out of how many members who voted) which were awarded at the meeting.

The link in each book title in the table refers to the entry in Google Books, which gives more details about the book.

Month	Title and Google Link	Author	Rating
2026
June	The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Official Secrets	Marcia Mitchell, Thomas Mitchell
May	No Comment: What I Wish I'd Known about Becoming a Detective	Jess McDonald
April	Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism	Kathleen Stock	5.63/10(8)
March	Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990	Katja Hoyer	7.17/10(9)
February	Everything is Everything	Clive Myrie	8.05/10(10)
January	Ravenous: How to Get Ourselves and Our Planet Into Shape	Henry Dimbleby, Jemima Lewis	7.8/10(8)
2025
December	Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures	Merlin Sheldrake	6.38/10(9)
November	A History of the World in 47 Borders	Jonn Elledge	6.05/10(12)
October	Patriot: A Memoir	Alexei Navalny	7.75/10 (10)
September	Keep Talking: A Broadcasting Life	David Dimbleby
August	Strangeland: How Britain Stopped Making Sense	Jon Sopel
July	The Garden Against Time: In Search Of A Common Paradise	Olivia Laing
June	The Siege: The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama	Ben Macintyre
May	The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis OR The Trading Game: A Confession	Maria Smilios Gary Stevenson
April	A Village in the Third Reich	Julia Boyd, Angelika Patel
March	Humble Pi	Matt Parker
February	Blue Machine	Helen Czerski
January	I Bought a Mountain	Thomas Firbank
2024
December	Free choice of book
November	Black Gold: The History of How Coal Made Britain	Jeremy Paxman
October	Wasteland:The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future	Oliver Franklin-Wallis
September	Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country’s Hidden Past	Giles Tremlett
August	Politics On the Edge	Rory Stewart
July	Abroad in Japan	Chris Broad
June	Fighting for Life: The Twelve Battles that Made Our NHS, and the Struggle for Its Future	Isabel Hardman
May	Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty	Robert Friedel
April	The Boys in the Boat	Daniel James Brown
March	The Wager	David Grann
February	The Story of Music	Howard Goodall
January	Humankind: A Hopeful History	Rutger Bregman
2023
December	In the Wars	Waheed Arian
November	Agatha Christie	Lucy Worsley
October	Tourists: How the British Went Abroad to Find Themselves	Lucy Lethbridge
September	Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland	Patrick Radden Keefe
August	Snow Widows: Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition Through the Eyes of the Women They Left Behind	Katherine MacInnes
July	Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle	Clare Hunter
June	A Short History of Russia	Mark Galeotti
May	Africa Is Not A Country: Breaking Stereotypes of Modern Africa	Dipo Faloyin
April	Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine	Hannah Fry
March	Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis OR The Gift Of A Radio: My Childhood and other Train Wrecks	James Davies Justin Webb
February	The Prime Ministers We Never Had: Success and Failure from Butler to Corbyn	Steve Richards
January	Control	Adam Rutherford
2022
December	The Truths We Hold: An American Journey	Kamala Harris
November	The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss	Richard Coles
October	Infidel	Ayaan Hirsi Ali
September	The Courage to Care:A Call for Compassion	Christie Watson
August	Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty	Patrick Radden Keefe
July	Diary of an MP’s Wife: Inside and Outside Power	Sasha Swire
June	Borderland	Anna Reid
May	One on One	Craig Brown
April	English Pastoral: An Inheritance	James Rebanks
March	Defying Hitler: A Memoir	Sebastian Haffner
February	Unofficial Britain: Journeys Through Forgotten Places	Gareth Rees
January	Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack	Richard Ovenden
2021
December	Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain	Sathnam Sanghera
November	Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5	Stella Rimington
October	The Moth and the Mountain: A True Story of Love, War, and Everest	Ed Caesar
September	House of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons	Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason
August	(Holiday)
July	Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country	John Kampfner
June	Tribes: A Search for Belonging in a Divided Society	David Lammy
May	Erebus: The Story of a Ship	Michael Palin
April	The Anarchy	William Dalrymple
March	Motherwell	Deborah Orr
February	A Bit Of A Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner	Chris Atkins
January	Black and British: A Forgotten History	David Olusoga
2020
December	The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland	John Lewis-Stempel
November	Under the Wig: A Lawyer’s Stories of Murder, Guilt and Innocence	William Clegg QC
October	Prisoners of Geography: Our World Explained in 12 Simple Maps	Tim Marshall
September	Running for the Hills:A Memoir	Horatio Clare
August	The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz	Jack Fairweather
July	Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race	Reni Eddo-Lodge
June	Down to the Sea in Ships	Horatio Clare
May	The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper	Hallie Rubenhold
April	Mafia: Inside the Dark Heart: The Rise and Fall of the Sicilian Mafia	A.G.D.Maran
March	Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm	Isabella Tree
February	War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line	David Nott
January	Truth to Power: How to Call Time on Bullsh*t, Speak Up and Change The World	Jess Phillips
2019
December	(Holiday)
November	Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News	Emily Maitlis
October	Bloody Brilliant Women	Cathy Newman
September	The Secret Barrister	Anonymous
August	(Holiday)
July	All That Remains: A Life in Death	Sue Black
June	Why We Get the Wrong Politicians	Isabel Hardman
May	Playing to the Gallery	Grayson Perry
April	AA Gill is Away	A A Gill
March	On the Front Line with the Women Who Fight Back	Stacey Dooley
February	W T F?	Robert Peston
January	If Only They Didn’t Speak English	Jon Sopel
2018
December	Educated	Tara Westover
November	The Child That Books Built	Francis Spufford
October	Touching the Void	Joe Simpson
September	This Changes Everything	Naomi Klein
August	Why I Write	George Orwell
July	A History of Britain in 21 Women	Jenni Murray
June	Being Mortal	Atul Gawande
May	One Woman Walks Wales	Ursula Martin
April	The Shepherd’s Life	James Rebanks