19 December 2005 Elizabeth Kostova's top 10 books for winter nights 1. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, 1868 2. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, 1860 3. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, 1980 (English translation, 1984) 4. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers, 1934 5. Possession by AS Byatt, 1990 6. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, 1998 7. The Archivist by Martha Cooley, 1998 8. Bleak House by Charles Dickens, 1852 9. The Secret History by Donna Tartt, 1992 10. The Fig Eater by Jody Shields, 2000
06 December 2005 Jeremy Mercer's top 10 bookshops 1. Atlantis Books, Oia, Santorini Island, Greece 2. Shakespeare and Co, 37 rue de la Bucherie, Paris, France 3. bookartbookshop, 17 Pitfield St, London, UK 4. Clovis Press, 229 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, US 5. Calder Bookshop, 51 The Cut, London, UK 6. La Bouquinèrie, 88 La Canebiere, Marseille, France 7. City Lights, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, US 8. This Ain't The Rosedale Library, 483 Church Street, Toronto, Canada 9. Abbey Books, 29 rue de la Parcheminerie, Paris, France 10. Compendium Books (now closed), 234 Camden High Street, London, UK
22 November 2005 Max Décharné's top 10 London fashion books 1. Quant by Quant by Mary Quant 2. Vivienne Westwood - An Unfashionable Life by Jane Mulvagh 3. Satellite - Sex Pistols memorabilia, locations, photography, fashion by Paul Burgess and Alan Parker 4. The Look - Adventures in Rock and Pop Fashion by Paul Gorman 5. Ossie Clark 1965 / 74 by Judith Watt 6. The Teds by Chris Steele-Perkins and Richard Smith 7. Rockers! by Johnny Stuart 8. The London Look - Fashion from Street to Catwalk by Christopher Breward, Edwina Ehrman and Caroline Evans 9. Worst Fashions - What We Shouldn't Have Worn... But Did by Catherine Horwood 10. Fashion Design by Sue Jenkyn Jones
15 November 2005 Sam Jordison's top 10 books on cults and religious extremists 1. Roughing It by Mark Twain 2. The Book Of Mormon by Joseph Smith 3. La-Bas (The Damned) by JK Huysmans 4. The Private Memoirs and Confessions Of A Justified Sinner by James Hogg 5. Spying In Guruland by William Shaw 6. Diary Of A Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley 7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 8. My Life In Orange by Tim Guest 9. The Satanic Bible by Anton S LaVey 10. The Bible
21 October 2005 Helena Frith Powell's top 10 sexy French books 1. Chéri by Colette 2. Madame de by Louise de Vilmorin 3. The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras 4. Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan 5. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 6. Emmanuelle by Emmanuelle Arsan 7. Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos 8. I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere by Anna Gavalda 9. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond de Rostand 10. The Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin
17 October 2005 Julian Roach's top 10 books on Percy Bysshe Shelley 1. Shelley: The Pursuit, by Richard Holmes 2. Mary Shelley, by Miranda Seymour 3. Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, by Edward Trelawny 4. Shelley's Poetry and Prose, ed. Donald H Reiman and Sharon Powers 5. Red Shelley, by Paul Foot. 6. A Philosophical View of Reform, by PB Shelley 7. The Making of The English Working Class, by EP Thompson 8. Memoirs of Shelley, by Thomas Love Peacock 9. Shelley's Mythmaking, by Harold Bloom 10: The Flight of The Skylark, by Sylva Norman
13 September 2005 Isabel Wolff's top 10 books set in the Midlands 1. The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe 2. The Unfortunates by BS Johnson 3. Anita and Me by Meera Syal 4. Middlemarch by George Eliot 5. The Road to Lichfield by Penelope Lively 6. Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses by David Lodge 7. Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes 8. Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall 9. The Rainbow by DH Lawrence 10. Working Wonders by Jenny Colgan
05 September 2005 James Meek's top 10 books of Russia 1. Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol, 1842 2. Fathers And Sons, by Ivan Turgenev, 1862 3. The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodr Dostoyevsky, 1879 4. Petersburg, by Andrei Bely, 1916-1922 5. The Master And Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov, 1940 6. To The Finland Station, by Edmund Wilson, 1940 7. Russian Thinkers, by Isaiah Berlin, 1948 8. Kolyma Tales, by Varlam Shalamov, 1929-1982 9. A People's Tragedy, by Orlando Figes, 1997 10. Chapayev And Pustota, by Viktor Pelevin, 1998 (published in English both as Buddha's Little Finger and The Clay Machine Gun)
24 August 2005 Robert Collins's top 10 dystopian novels 1. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell 2. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 3. Crash by JG Ballard 4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 5. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 6. In The Country of Last Things by Paul Auster 7. Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson 8. Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle 9. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K Dick 10. Idoru by William Gibson
17 August 2005 Diana Souhami: books about Paris and London lesbians in the early 20th century 1. Ladies Almanack, by Djuna Barnes 2. The Pure and the Impure, by Colette 3. Shakespeare and Company, by Sylvia Beach 4. In Memory of Dorothy Ierne Wilde: Oscaria, edited by Natalie Barney 5. A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway 6. The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall 7. Your John: The Love Letters of Radclyffe Hall, edited by Joanne Glasgow 8. Violet to Vita: The Letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West, edited by Mitchell A Leaska and John Phillips 9. Gluck: Her Biography, by Diana Souhami 10. Paris Was Yesterday by Janet Flanner
16 August 2005 Ian Holding's top 10 books that teach us something about southern Africa 1. Disgrace by JM Coetzee 2. The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith 3. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga 4. The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer 5. Harvest of Thorns by Shimmer Chinodya 6. The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut 7. Looking on Darkness by Andre Brink 8. The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera 9. The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing 10. Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor
21 July 2005 Segun Afolabi's top 10 'on the move' books 1. A State of Independence by Caryl Phillips 2. The Comedians by Graham Greene 3. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver 4. Another Country by James Baldwin 5. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson 6. Life and Times of Michael K by JM Coetzee 7. Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid 8. The Visitor by Maeve Brennan 9. The South by Colm Toibin 10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
14 July 2005 Jeremy Sheldon's top 10 supernatural books 1. Vineland by Thomas Pynchon 2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 3. The Collected Ghost Stories of MR James by MR James 4. Bestiary by Julio Cortazar 5. D'Entre Les Morts (Among the Dead) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac 6. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov 7. Beloved by Toni Morrison 8. Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio by Pu Songling 9. Other People by Martin Amis 10. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
30 June 2005 Matt Seaton's top 10 books about cycling 1. The Rider by Tim Krabbé 2. Bike Cult: The Ultimate Guide to Human Powered Vehicles by David B Perry 3. On Your Bicycle: An Illustrated History of Cycling by James McGurn 4 Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage 5. Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson by William Fotheringham 6. One More Kilometre and We're in the Showers by Tim Hilton 7. Off to the Races: 25 Years of Cycling Journalism by Samuel Abt 8. Flying Scotsman: The Graeme Obree Story by Graeme Obree 9. A Significant Other: Riding the Centenary Tour De France with Lance Armstrong by Matt Rendell 10. It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong
20 June 2005 Wesley Stace's top 10 books about children aimed at adults 1. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes 2. The Shrimp And The Anemone by LP Hartley 3. Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner 4. I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith 5. The Story of Ragged Robyn by Oliver Onions 6. Time Bomb by Nigel Hinton 7. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 8. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks 9. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami 10. First Childhood by Lord Berners
13 June 2005 Tiffany Murray's top 10 black comedies 1. Amphigorey and Amphigorey Too by Edward Gorey 2. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh 3. Mr Sandman by Barbara Gowdy 4. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons 5. Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving 6. In Youth is Pleasure by Denton Welch 7. Dangerous Pleasures by Patrick Gale 8. Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett 9. Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut 10. Modern Love by Paul Magrs
06 June 2005 Joyce Crick's top 10 fairytales 1. Rumpelstiltskin 2. Cat and Mouse as Partners 3. The Goose Girl 4. Hans in Luck 5. The Fisherman and his Wife 6. The Juniper Tree 7. Red Riding Hood 8. The Pack of No-Good Lowlife Ruffians 9. Eckbert the Fair 10. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
02 June 2005 Terry Breverton's top 10 great Welshmen 1. Arthur ap Meurig ap Tewdrig (died 570) 2. John Charles (1931-1994) 3. Owain Glyndwr (1354-1415) 4. DW Griffith (1875-1948) 5. Llywellyn Morris Humphreys - Murray The Hump (1899-1965) 6. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 7. Pelagius (also know as Morgan) (c385-c460s) 8. William Price (1800-1893) 9. 'Black Bart' Roberts (1682-1722) 10. HM Stanley (1841-1904)
10 May 2005 Rupert Wright's top 10 books about France 1. Between Meals by AJ Liebling 2. French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David 3. The Wines of the South of France by Rosemary George 4. The French Cheese Book by Patrick Rance 5. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell 6. Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation 1940-1945 by Robert Gildea 7. Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer by Richard Holmes 8. Hip Hotels: France by Herbert Ypma 9. Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds 10. More French Please We're British by Helena Frith Powell
04 May 2005 Bella Bathurst's top 10 books on the sea 1. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge 2. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 3. The Depths of the Sea by R Wyville Thompson 4. Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson 5. Seven-Tenths by James Hamilton-Paterson 6. Coasting by Jonathan Raban 7. Woman Alone: Sailing Solo Across the Atlantic by Clare Francis 8. The Aubrey/Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian 9. Lighthouse by Tony Parker 10. Shipwreck: Photographs by the Gibsons of Scilly, by John Fowles
11 April 2005 Paul Addison's top 10 books on Churchill 1 My Early Life by Winston Churchill 2. Churchill: Four Faces and the Man (Various) 3. In Search of Churchill by Martin Gilbert 4. Winston Churchill: His Life as a Painter by Mary Soames 5. Churchill and Secret Service by David Stafford 6. Man of the Century: Winston Churchill and his Legend since 1945 by John Ramsden 7. In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War by David Reynolds 8. Churchill: The End of Glory by John Charmley 9. The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America and the Origins of the Cold War by Fraser J Harbutt 10. Churchill by Roy Jenkins; Churchill: A Study in Greatness by Geoffrey Best
23 March 2005 Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's top 10 books for six- to eight-year-olds 1. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster 2. Clockwork by Philip Pullman 3. The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton 4. Varjak Paw by SF Said 5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl 6. The Tom Marlowe Mysteries by Chris Priestley 7. The Shrinking of Treehorn by Florence Parry Heide 8. Professor Branestaum by Norman Stone 9. Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown 10. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
18 March 2005 Julith Jedamus's top 10 Japanese novels 1. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (11th century) 2. Kokoro by Natsume Soseki (1914) 3. Rashomon (1915) and In a Grove (1922) by Ryunosuke Akutagawa 4. Some Prefer Nettles by Junichiro Tanizaki (1928) 5. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (1947) 6. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima (1956) 7. Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe (1962) 8. Silence by Shusaku Endo (1966) 9. Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! By Kenzaburo Oe (1983) 10. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (1987)
16 March 2005 David Monagan's top 10 Irish journeys 1. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien 2. Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O'Sullivan 3. The Truth About the Irish by Terry Eagleton 4. Irish Journey by Heinrich Böll 5. Woodbrook by David Thomson 6. Puckoon by Spike Milligan 7 McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy 8. The Gingerman by JP Donleavy 9. Round Ireland in Low Gear by Eric Newby 10. This Sceptered Isle
07 March 2005 Maggy Hendry's top 10 entries from the Dictionary of Women's Biography 1. Madonna 2. Frida Kahlo 3. Jezebel 4. Professor Wangari Maathai 5. Eileen Wani Wingfield and Eileen Kampakuta Brown 6. Valerie Solanas 7. Martha Gellhorn 8. Mary Anning 9. Mary Kingsley 10. Rosa Parks
01 March 2005 Tim Dolin's top 10 books on George Eliot 1. The Journals of George Eliot, ed. Margaret Harris and Judith Johnston (1998) 2. Parallel Lives by Phyllis Rose (1983) 3. The Real Life of Mary Ann Evans by Rosemarie Bodenheimer (1994) 4. Episodes in the Lives of Men, Women and Lovers (1882) and Diary of a Shirtmaker (1998) by Edith Simcox 5. The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick (1997) 6. George Eliot on Blackstone Audiobooks, read by Nadia May 7. Partial Portraits by Henry James (1888) and 'George Eliot' by Virginia Woolf (1925) 8. Darwin's Plots by Gillian Beer (1983) 9. George Eliot's Pulse by Neil Hertz (2003) 10. A Century of George Eliot Criticism by Gordon Haight (1965)
15 February 2005 Leonie Frieda's top 10 biographies of historical figures 1. Queen Victoria by Elizabeth Longford 2. Elizabeth I by Anne Somerset 3. Mary, Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser 4. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the birth of the Modern Age by Modris Eksteins 5. Elizabeth by David Starkey 6. Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francois I by Professor Robert Knecht 7. Stalin: The Court of The Red Tsar By Simon Sebag Montefiore 8. Catherine de Medici, by Ivan Cloulas 9. Henri II By Frederick Baumgartner 10.Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
07 February 2005 John Burnside's top 10 Scottish poetry collections 1. Poems, Robert Henryson (c1425 - c1500) 2. Poems, Alexander Montgomerie (1550?-1598) 3. Poems in Scots, Robert Fergusson, (1750-1774) 4. Complete Poems, Robert Burns ( 1759-1796) 5. Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd, James Hogg (1770-1835) 6. Collected Poems, Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978) 7. The Nightfishing, WS Graham (1918-1986) 8. Still and All, Burns Singer (1928-1964) 9. Voice Over, Norman MacCaig (1910-1996) 10. O Choille gu Bearradh, Somhairle MacGill-Eain (1911-1996)
28 January 2005 James Hawes' top 10 satires 1. The Trial by Franz Kafka 2. Bleak House by Charles Dickens 3. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh 4. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh 5. Der Untertan by Heinrich Mann 6. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut 7. White Noise by Don DeLillo 8. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 9. The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury 10. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
11 January 2005 Sally Beauman's top 10 novels with a powerful sense of place 1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 2. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald 3. Bleak House by Charles Dickens 4. Rabbit Angstrom: the four novels by John Updike 5. The William books by Richmal Crompton 6. Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler 7. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 8. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 9. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy 10. Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys