For a slightly incomplete but annotated version of this list, see my Twitter thread.

  • Rings of Saturn, W.G Sebald
  • The Cello Suites, Eric Siblin
  • Handel In London, Jane Glover
  • Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth, Gitta Sereny
  • The Shortest History of Europe, John Hirst
  • The Saturday Caller, Georges Simenon
  • The Sleepwalkers, Arthur Koestler
  • Science and Government, C.P. Snow
  • One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and
    American Culture, Gerald Early
  • Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace and Bryan Garner Talk Language and Writing
  • Believe In People: The Essential Karel Čapek
  • The Driver’s Seat, Muriel Spark
  • Isaac Newton, James Gleick
  • What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami
  • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark
  • Lady Sings The Blues, Billie Holiday
  • Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed
  • For Esmé, With Love and Squalor, J.D. Salinger
  • Just Kids, Patti Smith
  • The Evolution of Everything, Matt Ridley
  • A King Condemned: The Trial and Execution of Charles I, C.V. Wedgwood
  • No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings.
  • Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes.
  • The Undoing Project Michael Lewis
  • The Smile Revolution: In Eighteenth Century Paris, Colin Jones.
  • The Fire of Joy, Clive James
  • The State of Disbelief, Juliet Rosenfeld
  • The Lion and the Unicorn, Richard Aldous
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John Le Carré.