Non-fiction
The Economist Style Guide (2006)
Young Elizabeth, by Alison Plowden (2012)
Danger to Elizabeth, by Alison Plowden (2012)
Marriage with My Kingdom: The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth I, by Alison Plowden (2012)
Elizabeth Regina, by Alison Plowden (2012)
The Bible: The Biography, by Karen Armstrong (2012)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Ann Jacobs (2012)
The Russian Phoenix, by Francis House (2012)
TARDIS Eruditorum Volume 3: Jon Pertwee, by Philip Sandifer (2013)
Boys in Zinc, by Svetlana Alexievich (2021)
Non-genre
The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco (2013)
Dark Horse, by Fletcher Knebel (2016)
Gigi, and The Cat, by Colette (2019)
SF
The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen, translated and edited by Jeffrey Frank and Diana Crone Frank (2007)
Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl (2013)
True History, by Lucian of Samosata (2015)
Dreaming in Smoke, by Tricia Sullivan (2020)
The Extremes, by Christopher Priest (2020)
Aurora: Beyond Equality, eds Vonda N. McIntyre and Susan Anderson (2023)
The Splendid City by Karen Heuler (2023)
Doctor Who
Doctor Who Annual 1986 (2011)
Risk Assessment, by James Goss (2012)
Comics
Rose de Paris, by Gilles Schlesser and Eric Puech (2018)
Junker: een Pruisische blues, by Simon Spruyt (2022)
The Best
Today’s pick is a political novel from the early 1970s which I bet you have never heard of: Dark Horse, by Fletcher Knebel. Due to the Republican candidate’s death shortly before the 1976 election, an obscure politician from New Jersey – “a corridor of swampy weather and toadstool habitations that called itself a state” – is elevated to political superstar status, and tries to use it for good. There are no TV debates. There is a sub-plot with a sex tape of which there is only one copy. It’s just great. (Review; get it here.)
Honorable Mentions
I’m in a forgiving mood today, so you can have four:
The Name of the Rose – the fascinating medieval novel by Umberto Eco. (Review; long footnote; get it here.)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – gruelling first-person account of the real effects of the “peculiar institution”. (Review; get it here.)
Boys in Zinc – the human impact of the post-Soviet wars on ordinary Russian soldiers and their ordinary families. Helped win the writer a Nobel prize. (Review; get it here.)
Risk Assessment – one of James Goss’s many excellent contributions to the Whoniverse, this time concerning Torchwood. (Review; get it here)
The one you haven’t heard of
Aurora: Beyond Equality – a useful representation of both how far sf had come in 1976 and how much farther there still was to go. (Review; get it here.)
The ones to avoid
I’m leaving this category blank today; I like some of the above more than others, but none is actually awful.