Non-fiction
J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, by Tom Shippey (2004)
Veeps, by Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger (2009)
EU Lobbying Handbook, by Andreas Geiger (2020)
Kosovo: A Short History, by Noel Malcolm (2022)
Stability Operations in Kosovo 1999-2000: A Case Study, by Jason Fritz (2022)
The Smell of War, by Roland Bartetzko (2022)
How to End Russia’s War on Ukraine, by Timothy Ash et al (2023)
Non-genre
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens (2010)
Desert, by J.M.G. Le Clézio (2013)
Confessions of Zeno, by Italo Svevo (2013)
The Last Empress, by Anchee Min (2013)
SF
Galactic Patrol, by E.E. “Doc” Smith (2006)
Dawn, by Octavia E. Butler (2014)
The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, by Theodore Roszak (2014)
The Goblin of Tara, by Oisin McGann (2014)
The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame (2019)
Wormhole, by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown (2023)
Doctor Who
The Also People, by Ben Aaronovitch (2013) [Eighth Doctor, spinoff novel]
The best
Tom Shippey’s J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is a great analysis of why it is that Tolkien’s works have struck such a deep chord with so many readers. (Review; get it here.)
Honorable mentions
Kosovo: A Short History is magisterial, but only goes to 1997 unfortunately. (Review; get it here)
Dawn is a typically unsparing Butler examination of slavery and symbiosis. (Review; get it here)
Desert goes from the Western Sahara to Marseilles, and finds that the human desert may be in the latter rather than the former . (Review; get it here)
The one you haven’t heard of
Maybe it’s slightly cheating to count thinktank papers as books for these purposes, but I found the June 2023 Chatham House report on “How to end the War in Ukraine” very rigorous and coherent, in particular debunking the various justifications that have been given for the war. Though my good friend Ian did this rather more pithily a year earlier. (Review; get it for free here)
The one to avoid
I do not understand the reverence for the works of E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith in the history of science fiction. They are all rubbish, and Galactic Patrol is as bad as any of them. (Review; get it here)