New non-fiction books for September 2023
by Brandon King
Take a look at our latest non-fiction titles for September 2023.
Looking for something new to read? Browse our recommendations.
Everything is Everything: A Memoir of Love, Hate & Hope, by Clive Myrie
As a Bolton teenager with a paper round Clive Myrie read all the newspapers he delivered from cover to cover, and dreamed of becoming a journalist. Thirty years on, he's reported from more than ninety countries for the BBC. In this deeply personal memoir, he reflects on how being black has affected his perspective on the myriad issues he's encountered in reporting some of the biggest stories of our time. Clive's empathy for the individual caught up in large historical events is widely recognised. He tells how his family history has influenced his view of the world, introducing us to his Windrush generation parents, a great grandfather who helped build the Panama Canal, and a great uncle who fought in the First World War and later became a prominent police detective in Jamaica.
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Great-Uncle Harry: A Tale of War and Empire, by Michael Palin
From the time, many years ago, when Michael Palin first heard that his grandfather had a brother, Harry, who died in tragic circumstances, he was determined to find out more about him. The quest that followed involved hundreds of hours of painstaking detective work. Michael dug out every bit of family gossip and correspondence he could. He studied every relevant official document. He tracked down what remained of his great-uncle Harry's diaries and letters, and pored over photographs of First World War battle scenes to see whether Harry appeared in any of them. He walked the route Harry took on that fatal, final day of his life amid the mud of northern France. And as he did so, a life that had previously existed in the shadows was revealed to him.
Politics on the Edge: A Memoir From Within, by Rory Stewart
Over the course of a decade from 2010, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister - before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise. Tackling ministerial briefs on flood response and prison violence, engaging with conflict and poverty abroad as a foreign minister, and Brexit as a Cabinet minister, Stewart learned first-hand how profoundly hollow and inadequate our democracy and government had become. Cronyism, ignorance and sheer incompetence ran rampant. Around him, individual politicians laid the foundations for the political and economic chaos of today. Stewart emerged battered but with a profound affection for his constituency of Penrith and the Border, and a deep direct insight into the era of populism and global conflict. This book invites us into the mind of one of the most interesting actors on the British political stage.
Pru and Me, by Timothy West
After first meeting over 60 years ago while filming a costume drama for the BBC, Prunella Scales and Timothy West have enjoyed a partnership like no other. From appearing together in countless productions on stage and the hit 1960s sitcom 'Marriage Lines', they have chalked up an almost endless list of professional triumphs, perhaps most notably for Pru is her portrayal of Sybil Fawlty in 'Fawlty Towers', and for Tim, the role of Bradley Hardacre in the popular comedy-drama series, 'Brass'. They have also brought up their two sons, Samuel and Joseph, and Tim's daughter by his first marriage, Juliet. Starting in 2014, Channel 4's 'Great Canal Journeys' quickly became one of the most popular programmes on British TV. In this book, Tim traces their united steps through life professionally and personally, and covers the highs and lows of caring for Pru since her dementia diagnosis, 20 years ago.
Father and Son, by Jonathan Raban
On 11th June 2011, three days short of his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body. Learning to use a wheelchair in a rehab facility outside Seattle and resisting the ministrations of the nurses overseeing his recovery, Raban began to reflect upon the measure of his own life in the face of his own mortality. Together with the chronicle of his recovery is the extraordinary story of his parents' marriage, the early years of which were conducted by letter while his father fought in the Second World War. Jonathan Raban engages profoundly and candidly with some of the biggest questions at the heart of what it means to be alive, laying bare the human capacity to withstand trauma, as well as the warmth, strength, and humour that persist despite it.
The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary, by Sarah Ogilvie
What do three murderers, Karl Marx's daughter and a vegetarian vicar have in common? They all helped create the 'Oxford English Dictionary'. The 'Oxford English Dictionary' has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men; its longest-serving editor, James Murray, devoted 36 years to the project, as far as the letter T. But the Dictionary didn't just belong to the experts; it relied on contributions from members of the public. By the time it was finished in 1928 its 414,825 entries had been crowdsourced from a surprising and diverse group of people, from archaeologists and astronomers to murderers, naturists, novelists, pornographers, queer couples, suffragists, vicars, and vegetarians. Lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie dives deep into previously untapped archives to tell a people's history of the OED.
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Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens, by David Mitchell
Think you know the Kings and Queens of England? Think again. In 'Unruly', David Mitchell explores how early England's monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects' destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky sods who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear to us today in their portraits.
Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson
The astonishingly intimate story of Elon Musk, the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era - a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter. When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist. His father's impact on his psyche would linger.
Oh Miriam! Stories From an Extraordinary Life
Award-winning actress, bestselling author of her memoir This Much Is True, and Britain's naughtiest national treasure is back, and she's as outrageous as ever.
Join us on another unforgettable adventure through the extraordinary life and strong opinions of Miriam Margolyes.
From being escorted off the Today programme (for saying what we were all thinking) to declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave; from Tales of the Unexpected to Graham Norton's sofa, she is our most loved and most outspoken national treasure. Oh Miriam! takes you inside both her head and her heart.
Nadiya's Simple Spices, by Nadiya Hussain
When it comes to spice Nadiya's family cooking is never complicated and always delicious. Nadiya wants to share with you the eight readily available spices she uses every day at home to cook her most-loved meals, the same spices that her Mum uses and her Nani used before her.
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The Bone Chests, by Cat Jarman
From bioarchaeologist and author Cat Jarman, this gripping history of the Anglo-Saxons told through six bone chests, stored for over a thousand years in Winchester Cathedral. In 2014 when the chests were opened for the first time to anthropologists and archaeologist, the bones were photographed and catalogued so that the exact position of each individual item is a matter of record. Since then, cutting edge science, including isotope analysis, carbon dating and DNA analysis has revealed astonishing insights about the men and women who orchestrated and witnessed the creation of England.
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma, by Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar
We are about to cross a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. Soon we will live surrounded by AIs. They will carry out complex tasks - operating businesses, producing unlimited digital content, running core government services and maintaining infrastructure. This will be a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. It represents nothing less than a step change in human capability. We are not prepared. As cofounder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution, one poised to become the single greatest accelerant of progress in history. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies.