Books

Last updated: 22:34 GMT, 29 December 2022
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NEW YEAR, NEW READS: A sneak preview of the novels to devour in 2023 

Coming soon to a bookshop near you: from Zadie Smith to Curtis Sittenfeld, from heart-throbs to hauntings, kidnaps and con artists, our top critics give a sneak preview of the novels they'll devour in 2023

Gyles Brandreth's book of the year was published in 1941. Looking For Trouble by Virginia Cowles and it is so beautifully written.

ROGER LEWIS: Much of Perry's life has unfolded in clinics and rehab centres. 'I have spent upward of $7 million trying to get sober,' he says, which is nearly more than I've spent getting drunk.

Whose loo is 'past the Picasso and left at the Matisse'? ... and what was it about Liz Taylor that caught a studio boss's eye? Just two of the tantalising questions in our fiendish literary quiz

Robert Harris has seldom been on better form than in Act Of Oblivion , his new 17th-century How-They-Tried-To-Do-It-To-The-People-Who-Dunnit thriller, about a post-Restoration hunt.

This love letter to the wonder of trees is full of quirky arboreal information; did you know that some evergreen trees keep their leaves in winter by producing 'a sort of antifreeze'?

THIS WEEK'S PAPERBACKS
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Health books

According to psychology coach Lynne Dorling, there are eight positive character traits common to what she calls 'super agers': they're resilient, with backbone and the determination to bounce back; endlessly curious - every day is a school day, even in your 80s; adaptable and open to change; they remain connected to others, and they pursue their passions. Yes, hobbies can help you live longer.

Our critics select the best of the year's novels to slip under the tree from literary fiction and sci-fi to contemporary and thrillers, the Daily Mail has selected some of the best books that will please all

Marcus Berkmann selects the illustrated books of the year including BIG, Paul, Country Church Monuments and A Very British Picnic.

Glucose is the fuel that keeps us all going - every second we burn eight billion molecules of it...Yet its connection with our health and well-being is rarely discussed except in the context of diabetes.

'We're going on a sleigh ride, Ho! Ho! Ho! Can you find the hidden gifts? Ready? Off we go!' The latest in the Bunny series follows the animals as they help Father Christmas deliver presents

There's no shortage of journalists' memoirs, which may or may not be a good thing, but there sure is a shortage of books with such a brilliant title.

The mellifluous, honey-hued tones of Peter Alliss, as warm and welcoming as a Cotswold pub, were the background soundtrack for anybody who has ever taken even the faintest interest in golf.

Poor old chickens. Their close relative, the pheasant, can be a tough old bird. Goose is rather fatty and gamey, and turkey can, frankly, be dry and boring.

The fact that the coffin is so cheaply made doesn't, of course, stop the conventional undertaker charging you a fortune for it. Rupert Callender offers people a more honest experience of grief

Jan Morris was a journalistic superstar, courted by editors over several decades. Her daughter reveals how difficult her transition in 1972 was on the family and how she felt

Hot on sex... cold on emotion: The stand-out memoirs of 2022 

Dawson's highly readable memoir of their illicit love affair of John le Carré and Suleika Dawson (half his age) is a blockbuster and highly readable. Meanwhile, you'll feel as though you're living inside the 1970s when you read Justin Webb's gloriously evocative memoir of his weird upbringing as an only child in the suburbs of Bath. And following on from her 2019 bestseller Lady In Waiting, Anne Glenconner, now 90 and delighting in her late-life success, takes us through facets of her rollercoaster of a life - author, daughter, wife, hostess, mother, lady-in-waiting, adventurer and friend - and throws new light on them all.

The never-ending scandals that have blighted London's police force in recent times make Line Of Duty look less like a TV drama and more like a documentary.

UK-based author Dolly Alderton reveals she relates to other people's problems. In her new-found career as an agony aunt Dolly frequently connects with letters.

Why we British always needed a monarchy

Stephen Bates - formerly royal correspondent of The Guardian - tells a lively tale of monarchy in the UK, from Saxon warlords to William and Harry. Bates points out that, 'unlike France, Germany or Russia, Britain has experienced neither the trauma of total defeat in war, nor of violent revolution'. This matters, as does our geography, insulated from invasion by the sea - a 'sceptred isle' indeed.

Max Hastings's superb reconstruction of the Cuban Missile Crisis reads like a thriller, as the gripping drama of Cold War power politics plays out behind closed doors.

Oliver Darkshire shares with us his own passion for faded and dusty 'boxes of Trollopes' and other bibliographic gems in Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller.

When retired midwife Jennifer Worth read an article asking if there was a writer who 'can do for midwifery what James Herriot did for vets', she took up the challenge.

How will the world be changed by Covid-19? It's safe enough to say, as Brian Michael Jenkins does in this alarming, but illuminating book, that 'the normality we knew before will not return'.

Tom Read Wilson has found the lost words to match every one of life's moments. From Treppenwitz (in German) to L'esprit de l'escalier (French) and Scurryfunge

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