"Who runs Britain?" by Robert Peston, BBC's Business Editor. Good question. He has a sneaking admiration for the City's buccaneers while realising that they are a very bad thing.
"The American Civil War" by John Keeghan. Very good & succinct. I wanted to know exactly what happened.
"The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets" by Eva Rice. Not the chick lit I thought it might be.
"The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England" by Ian Mortimer. Enchanting history book.
"The Day of the Barbarians" by Alessandro Barbero. The lead-up to Adrianople well explained but not so much of the actual battle as in Arthur Ferrill's book.
"The Earth" by Emile Zola, which paints the most unattractive possible picture of French peasants but would make a thrilling TV series. Much enjoyed it.
"The Spirit Level" by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett. Solid research-based treatise on why more equality is good for societies. What have I been saying all my life?
"Caspar David Friedrich" By Leo Koerner. Best art book I have ever read.
"The Human Stain" by Philip Roth. Very powerful writing. Has to be taken in small doses.
"The Music Room" by William Fiennes. Sad enchanting story about his epileptic brother.
"The Great Pianists" by Harold Schönberg. Xmas present from Jason & a remarkable achievement to keep one fascinated when one cannot hear most of them actually play anything.
"The Shakespeare Secret" by J.L.Carrell. Preposterous page turner. I may have read it before & forgotten.
"Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel. A tour de force of historical reconstruction, making characters & events leap off the page. I gather the sequal is under way. Good.
"The Kindness of Sisters" by David Crane. A vigorously written hatchet job on Annabella Milbanke, Lady Byron, richly-deserved.
"Young Stalin" by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Rollicking tale. He did an enormous amount of research, including into forgotten archives in Russia.
"A City Solitary" by Nicholas Freeling. Re-read. More a philosophy book than a crime novel, despite its melodramatic ending.
"The Idiot" by Dostoyevsky. Astonishing. I started this on the Alpine trip.
"Earthy Powers" by Michael Burleigh. He seems to think that religions are not political parties but this is an incredibly well researched book.