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17 December 2004
Guy Browning's top 10 Christmas books
1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss
2. Delia Smith's Christmas by Delia Smith
3. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
5. Families and How to Survive Them by John Cleese and Robin Skinner
6. The First Noel by Jan Pienkowski
7. The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris
8. Christmas Poems by UA Fanthorpe
9. The Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore (illustrated by Christian Birmingham)
10. The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
 
01 December 2004
Julie Burchill's top 10 books for teens
1. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
2. The Owl Service by Alan Garner
3. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
4. Jack Holborn by Leon Garfield
5. Anything by Jacqueline Wilson
6. Chocky by John Wyndham
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
8. The Sadler's Wells books by Lorna Hill
9. The Malory Towers books by Enid Blyton
10. How it Works by Graham Marks
 
17 November 2004
M John Harrison's top 10 books
1. Dream Dictionary (for the Modern Dreamer) by Tim Etchells
2. The School of Night by Alan Wall
3. How the Universe Got Its Spots by Janna Levin
4. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
5. The Vodi by John Braine
6. Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
7. The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams
8. Mercurius by Patrick Harpur
9. The Secret Life of Houses by Scott Bradfield
10. The Night Life of the Gods by Thorne Smith
 
10 November 2004
Michelle Paver's favourite books on archaeology and anthropology
1. The Mind in the Cave by David Lewis-Williams
2. The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for Origins of Art, Religion and Science by Steven Mithen
3. Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer
4. Nunamiut Eskimos by Nicholas Gubser
5. The Golden Bough by James George Frazer
6. Before Civilization by Colin Renfrew
7. Sinews of Survival by Betty Kobayashi Issenman
8. After the Ice by Steven Mithen
9. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by HR Ellis Davidson
10. Return to Chauvet Cave by Jean Clottes
 
05 November 2004
Sam and Sam Clark's favourite cookery books
1. A New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden
2. The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean by Paula Wolfert
3. Moroccan Cuisine by Paula Wolfert
4. The Spanish Kitchen by Nicholas Butcher
5. Delicioso! Regional Cooking of Spain by Penelope Casas
6. Classic Turkish Cooking by Ghillie Basan and Jonathan Basan
7. Food for the Vegetarian - Traditional Lebanese Recipes by Aida Karaoglan
8. Lebanese Cuisine by Anissa Helou
9. Time Life Foods of the World series - the Cooking of the Middle East
10. Mediterranean Seafood by Alan Davidson
 
15 October 2004
Simon Singh's favourite books on the history of science
1. The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski
2. E=mc2 by David Bodanis
3. Isaac Newton by James Gleick
4. The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage
5. The Neptune File by Tom Standage
6. Longitude
7. Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
8. The Cogwheel Brain by Doron Swade
9. Mendeleyev's Dream by Paul Strathern
10. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
 
11 October 2004
Saul David's favourite books on South African history
1. The Boer War by Thomas Packenham
2. The Washing of the Spears by Donald Robert Morris
3. My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan
4. The Broken String: The Last Words of an Extinct People by Neil Bennun
5. The Afrikaners by John Fisher
6. The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation by John Laband
7. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
8. Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War by Denys Reitz
9. The Bang-Bang Club: The Making of the New South Africa by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva
10. Jameson's Raid by Elizabeth Pakenham
 
29 September 2004
Charles Rangeley-Wilson's favourite books about fishing
1. Going Fishing by Negley Farson
2. The Secret Carp by Chris Yates
3. The Longest Silence by Thomas McGuane
4. I Know a Good Place by Clive Gammon
5. Trout Bum by John Gierach
6. An Angler's Hours by HT Sheringham
7. Rod and Line by Arthur Ransome
8. Crosscurrents by James R Babb
9. The Habit of Rivers by Ted Leeson
10. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
 
27 September 2004
Sam Jordison's top ten books on place
1. Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
2. White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings by Iain Sinclair
3. Lanark: A Life In Four Books by Alasdair Gray
4. Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs
5. Inferno (book one of The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri
6. Oranges are not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
7. Living Nowhere by John Burnside
8. Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
9. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
10. Eloise Millar - Wednesday's Child
 
22 September 2004
Linda Wagner-Martin's top 10 jazz age books
1. The Beautiful and Damned by F Scott Fitzgerald (1922)
2. The Green Hat by Michael Arlen (1924)
3. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
4. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)
5. Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (1932)
6. Sanctuary by William Faulkner (1932)
7. The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein (1933)
8. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (1964)
9. Ernest Hemingway: The Paris Years by Michael Reynolds (1989)
10. Favored Strangers: Gertrude Stein and Her Family by Linda Wagner-Martin (1995)
 
07 September 2004
Frank Delaney's top 10 Irish novels
1. Ulysses by James Joyce
2. The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
3. Troubles by JG Farrell
4. Thy Tears Might Cease by Michael Farrell
5. Fools of Fortune by William Trevor
6. The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan
7. Amongst Women by John McGahern
8. The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien
9. Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor
10. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
 
02 September 2004
Brian Chikwava's top ten works by writers who had a score to settle with society
1. A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
2. The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera
3. Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4. Collected Stories by Isaac Babel
5. Tigers are Better-Looking by Jean Rhys
6. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
7. The Outsider by Albert Camus
8. The Complete Short Stories of Franz Kafka
9. Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans
10. Catcher In the Rye by JD Salinger
 
24 August 2004
Dominic Calder-Smith's top 10 boxing books
1. Dark Trade by Donald McRae
2. King of the World by David Remnick
3. Ghosts of Manila by Mark Kram
4. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times by Thomas Hauser
5. In Black and White by Donald McRae
6. Night Train by Nick Tosches
7. Don King: Only in America by Jack Newfield
8. The Greatest by Richard Durham
9. War, Baby by Kevin Mitchell
10. This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own by Jonathan Rendall
 
11 August 2004
Paul Murray's top 10 gothic novels
1. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
2. History of the Caliph Vathek by William Beckford
3. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
4. The Monk by Matthew Lewis
5. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
6. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
7. Salathiel the Immortal by George Croly
8. Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood by James Malcolm Rymer or Thomas Pecket Prest
9. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
10. Dracula by Bram Stoker
 
28 July 2004
Michael Dobson and Nicola J Watson's top 10 books about Elizabeth I
1. Elizabeth I: Collected Works, edited by Mary Beth Rose, Janel Mueller and Leah S Marcus (2001)
2. Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I by Roy Strong (1987)
3. Elizabeth: The Exhibition Catalogue edited by David Starkey and Susan Doran (2003)
4. Elizabeth and Essex: a tragic history by Lytton Strachey (1928)
5. The Queens and the Hive by Edith Sitwell
6. Gloriana by Benjamin Britten (1953)
7. The Young Bess trilogy by Margaret Irwin
8. Firedrake's Eye by Patricia Finney
9. Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott
10. She Was Nice to Mice: The Other Side of Elizabeth I's Character Never Before Revealed by Previous Historians by Alexandra Sheedy
 
21 July 2004
Ian Marchant's top 10 railway books
1. Broken Rails by Christian Wolmar
2. The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin
3. Platform Souls by Nicholas Whittaker
4. Chronicles of a Garden Railway by WAD Strickland
5. The Victorian Railway by Jack Simmons
6. The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
7. The Railway Traveller's Handy Book by Anon
8. Railway Adventure by LTC Rolt
9. The Railway Children by E Nesbit
10. Underground to Everywhere by Stephen Halliday
 
19 July 2004
Mark Billingham's top 10 fictional detectives
1. Sherlock Holmes
2. Sam Spade
3. Harry Bosch
4. Frank Cannon
5. Matt Scudder
6. John Rebus
7. Dave Robicheaux
8. Burke
9. Charlie Parker
10. Tom Thorne
 
05 July 2004
Sally Emerson's top 10 books of quotations
1. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations edited by Elizabeth Knowles
2. The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations edited by JM and MJ Cohen
3. Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature edited by John Bartlett
4. The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations edited by Robert Andrews
5. The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations edited by Peter Kemp
6. The Penguin Concise Dictionary of Biographical Quotation edited by Justin Wintle and Richard Kenin
7. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations edited by Ned Sherrin
8. The Concise Dictionary of Foreign Quotations edited by Anthony Lejeune
9. The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations edited by Antony Jay
10. Handbook of 20th Century Quotations compiled by Frank S Pepper
 
01 June 2004
Isabel Losada's top 10 books about the Dalai Lama and Tibet
1. The Story of My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography by Mahatma Gandhi
2. The Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
3. Freedom in Exile by the Dalai Lama
4. The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama with Howard Cutler
5. The Dragon in the Land of Snows: The History of Modern Tibet since 1947 by Tsering Shakya
6. Eighteen Layers of Hell: Stories from the Chinese Gulag by Kate Saunders
7. The Hotel on the Roof of the World by Alec le Sueur
8. The Search for the Panchen Lama by Dr Isabel Hilton
9. The Dance of 17 Lives by Mick Brown
10. The Bradt Travel Guide to Tibet by Michael Buckley
 
11 May 2004
Nik Cohn's top ten rock 'n' roll books
1. Hellfire by Nick Tosches
2. Elvis in the Twilight of Memory by June Juanico
3. Unbelievable: The Life, Death and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G. by Cheo Hodari Coker
4. Take It Like A Man by Boy George
5. The Life and Times of Little Richard by Charles White
6. Yes Yes Y'All: An Oral History Of Hip-Hop's First Decade by Jim Fricke, Charlie Ahearn and Nelson George
7. Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs by John Lydon
8. X-Ray by Ray Davies
9. Clubland, by Frank Owen
10. The Autobiography of PJ Proby (unpublished)
 
29 April 2004
Toby Green's top 10 utopias and dystopias
1. Republic by Plato
2. Utopia by Thomas More
3. The City of the Sun by Thomas Campanella
4. New Atlantis by Francis Bacon
5. Erewhon by Samuel Butler
6. News from Nowhere by William Morris
7. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
8. Island by Aldous Huxley
9. The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
10. Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
 
22 April 2004
Alan Riding's top 10 curious facts about Shakespeare
1. St George's day
2. Sheikh Pear
3. Verse v prose
4. Big and small
5. A late-bloomer in London
6. What the dickens!
7. Hungry for Shakespeare?
8. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
9. Fathers and sons
10. Kiss me Laurence?
 
30 March 2004
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni's top 10 books on Hollywood
1. The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson
2. A Life by Elia Kazan
3. Indecent Exposure: A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street by David McClintick
4. White Hunter, Black Heart by Peter Viertel
5. Goldwyn by A Scott Berg
6. The Grove Book of Hollywood, edited by Christopher Silvester
7. United Artists: The Company that Changed the Film Industry by Tino Balio
8. David Lean: A Biography by Kevin Brownlow
9. For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies by Pauline Kael
10. Montgomery Clift by Patricia Bosworth
 
18 March 2004
Philip Davis's top 10 Victorian literature
1. Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
2. George Eliot: The Emergent Self by Ruby Redinger
3. The Autobiography by Mrs Oliphant
4. Hester by Mrs Oliphant
5. 'The Nature of Gothic' by John Ruskin
6. University Sermons by John Henry Newman
7. Lilith by George MacDonald
8. The Earthly Paradise by William Morris
9. Complete Poems by Christina Rossetti
10. The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
 
08 March 2004
Elleke Boehmer's top 10 tips on scouting, survival and good citizenship
1. Keep your eyes about you at all times in order not to miss a thing. When tracking in the bush a tiny detail - a broken twig, a crushed can - may provide a crucial "sign" (of water, of food, of rescue, danger, wildlife).
2. Breathe through your nose and keep your blood in good order. A mouth left hanging open aids and abets snoring - a dead giveaway in the bush.
3. Always carry a rough towel. Its uses are endless, even when you find yourself in the bush without water.
4. Limit your intake of meat. Meat weighs you down.
5. Study other peoples' footwear. Shoes are a good indicator of character.
6. Sleep where possible in the open air and without heavy blankets. An overheated body produces distracting dreams.
7. Whenever you can, "get a good laugh on". And make other people laugh, too; it does them good.
8. Be a friend to all.
9. Play the game of life with good spirit, whatever your game may be.
10. Be prepared to do your duty. Country first, self second.
 
03 March 2004
Georgia Byng's top 10 books to feed the imagination
1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
2. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
3. Holes by Louis Sachar
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
5. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
6. Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo
7. Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs
8. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
9. Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
10. Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling
 
23 February 2004
Sarah Dunant's top 10 books on the Renaissance
1. A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516 by Luca Landucci
2. Forbidden Friendships by Michael Rocke
3. The Craftsman's Handbook by Cennino d'Andrea Cennini
4. Virgins of Venice by Mary Laven
5. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
6. The Boundaries of Eros by Guido Ruggiero
7. Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari
8. The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici by Christopher Hibbert
9. The Merchant of Prato by Iris Origo
10. The Companion Guide to Florence by Eve Borsook
 
18 February 2004
Robert Irwin's top 10 books on Islam and Islamic culture
1. The Koran Interpreted, translated by Arthur J Arberry
2. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Cook
3. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran by Roy Mottahedeh
4. A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century. Shaikh Ahmad al-'Alawi by Martin Lings
5. The Shambhala Guide to Sufism by Carl Ernst
6. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization (3 volumes) by Marshal GS Hodgson
7. Atlas of the Islamic World by Francis Robinson
8. A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani
9. Islamic Art and Architecture by Robert Hillenbrand
10. Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices by Andrew Rippin
 
03 February 2004
Francis Wheen's top 10 modern delusions
1. "God is on our side"
2. The market is rational
3. There is no such thing as reality
4. We mustn't be "judgmental"
5. Laissez-faire capitalism is the prerequisite for trade and prosperity
6. Astrology and similar delusions are "harmless fun"
7. Thin air is solid
8. Sentimental hysteria is a sign of emotional maturity
9. America's economic success is entirely due to private enterprise
10. "It could be you. . ."
 
26 January 2004
Children's books David Almond: top 10 children's books
1. Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes
2. Dogger by Shirley Hughes
3. Charlotte's Web by EB White
4. King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
5. The Third Eye by Lobsang Rampa
6. Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones
7. Dogsong by Gary Paulsen
8. Thursday's Child by Sonya Hartnett
9. Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino
10. To Reach the Clouds by Philippe Petit
 
22 January 2004
Deirdre Bair's top 10 Jungian books
1. Memories, Dreams, Reflections by CG Jung
2. Modern Man in Search of a Soul by CG Jung
3. Man and His Symbols by CG Jung (ed)
4. Jung and the Post-Jungians by Andrew Samuels
5. The Jungians by Thomas B Kirsch
6. On Jung by Anthony Stevens
7. Jung by Anthony Storr
8. The Vision Thing by Thomas Singer (ed)
9. CG Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters by William McGuire and RFC Hull (eds)
10. The Discovery of the Unconscious by Henri Ellenberger
 
20 January 2004
DJ Taylor's books for Orwell-lovers
1. Orwell: The Complete Works, Volume XI: A Kind of Compulsion, 1903-1936 by Peter Davison
2. Orwell: A Literary Life by Peter Davison
3. Orwell at Home by Vernon Richards
4. New Grub Street by George Gissing
5. Infants of the Spring by Anthony Powell
6. George Orwell: A Memoir by Tosco Fyvel
7. The Girl in the Fiction Department by Hilary Spurling
8. Orwell: A Life by Bernard Crick
9. The Unknown Orwell by Peter Stansky and William Abrahams
10. Eric and Us by Jacintha Buddicom
 
12 January 2004
Matthew Pearl: top 10 books for Dante lovers
1. The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
2. Hannibal by Thomas Harris
3. The Wasteland and Other Poems by TS Eliot
4. If This is a Man by Primo Levi
5. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
6. The Undivine Comedy by Teodolinda Barolini
7. Dante's Testaments by Peter Hawkins
8. The Poets' Dante, edited by Peter Hawkins and Rachel Jacoff
9. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
10. The Vision of Dante Alighieri by Henry Francis Cary
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