The co-founder of the Hay Festival recommends books to spark debate and change minds. He is director of a new series of events, The Conversation, at St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Underland
A wondrous book about landscape and the living world that may change for ever and for better how we see our planet and our place here. Give it to everyone you love. Hell, give it to everyone you meet.
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Two Sisters
Åsne Seierstad, 2016
As in her unsparing study of the terrorist Anders Breivik, "One of Us", the Norwegian war reporter and investigative journalist takes us deep into the violent radicalisation of young Westerners, and their journeys out of the societies they grew up in and into the Syrian jihad.
The Lives of the Caesars
Suetonius, translated by Tom Holland, 2025
Today's Washington has nothing on Suetonius's Ancient Rome. You want to see crazy power run wild? Tom Holland brings his dearest "Father of the Show" into vivid, glorious English in this new translation.
The Wife of Bath: A Biography
Marion Turner, 2023
A love letter to Chaucer's favourite pilgrim, the fabulous and insatiable woman who is at the heart of "The Canterbury Tales". A book as bawdy and brilliant and celebratory as she is.
The Lorax
Dr Seuss, 1971
"Unless...". This is how to do it: irresistible language and storytelling, utterly persuasive eco-politics. We plant the Festivals Forest in Iceland because he wrote about truffula trees.
A Barrister for the Earth
Monica Feria-Tinta, published in April
Change needs everyone from protesters rebelling to CEOs and politicians reversing policy. Most of all it needs us to assess priorities. And it needs lawyers such as Monica Feria-Tinta to call and fight for the rights of the voiceless. This is how to do it too.
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October 13 editorial cartoonsCartoons Monday's political cartoons include Donald Trump's consolation prize, government workers during shutdown, and more
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Can Gaza momentum help end the war in Ukraine?Today's Big Question Zelenskyy’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles hints at ‘warming relations’ between Ukraine and US
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The Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners being releasedThe Explainer Triumphant Donald Trump addresses the Israeli parliament as families on both sides of the Gaza war reunite with their loved ones
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The delightful, smutty world of Jilly CooperIn the Spotlight Millions mourn the ‘Mrs Kipling of sex’
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Lee Miller at the Tate: a ‘sexy yet devastating’ showThe Week Recommends The ‘revelatory’ exhibition tells the photographer’s story ‘through her own impeccable eye’
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6 eye-catching rounded homesFeature Featuring a central spiral staircase in Michigan and a Balinese-style estate with ocean views in Hawaii
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A House of Dynamite: a ‘nail-biting’ nuclear-strike thrillerThe Week Recommends ‘Virtuoso talent’ Kathryn Bigelow directs a ‘fast-paced’ and ‘tense’ ‘symphony of dread’
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The Finest Hotel in Kabul: a ‘haunting’ history of modern AfghanistanThe Week Recommends Lyse Doucet’s sensitively written work traces over 50 years of Kabul’s ‘Inter-Con’ hotel
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The Smashing Machine: Dwayne Johnson is ‘magnetic’ in gritty biopicThe Week Recommends The wrestler-turned-Hollywood-actor takes on the role of troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr
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Shadow Ticket: Thomas Pynchon’s first novel in over a decadeThe Week Recommends Zany whodunnit about a private eye in 1930s Milwaukee could be the 88-year-old author’s ‘last hurrah’
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Southern barbecue: This year’s top threeFeature A weekend-only restaurant, a 90-year-old pitmaster, and more
