19 December 2006 Lara Feigel's top 10 smelly books 1. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust 2. Flush by Virginia Woolf 3. Perfume by Patrick Süskind 4. The Secret of Scent by Luca Turin 5. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell 6. Toast by Nigel Slater 7. Problems by Aristotle 8. Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire 9. L'Assommoir by Emile Zola 10. The Foul and the Fragrant: Odour and the French Social Imagination by Alain Corbin
07 December 2006 Steve Caplin and Simon Rose's top 10 365-leaf books 1. Euclid 5 LDT Tractor Chassis Only Service Manual 2. Bed & Breakfast Guest Accommodation in England 2006 3. The Nepticulidae and Opostegidae (Lepidoptera) of North West Europe 4. Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, vol 2 (1500-1504) 5. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage 6. International Directory of Company Histories vol 9 7. The Monumental Effigies of Gloucestershire & Bristol 8. The Malayan Civil List 1937 9. Chronological List of Antarctic Expeditions and Related Historical Events 10. Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion
08 November 2006 Meg Rosoff's top 10 adult books for teenagers 1. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy 2. Maus by Art Spiegelman 3. Casino Royale and Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming 4. Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl 5. The Sword in the Stone by TH White 6. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway 7. Perfume by Patrick Suskind 8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 9. Longitude by Dava Sobel 10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
31 October 2006 The QI top 10 quite interesting books by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson 1. A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman 2. The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson 3. Flora Britannica by Richard Mabey 4. Cassell's Dictionary of Slang by Jonathan Green 5. Labyrinths of Reason by William Poundstone 6. Thought As A System by David Bohm 7. The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher 8. Nature's Building Blocks by John Emsley 9. Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics by Willie Donaldson 10. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
25 October 2006 Lisa Scottoline's top 10 books about justice 1. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare 2. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie 3. Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver 4. The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, and The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith 5. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee 6. The Godfather by Mario Puzo 7. The Firm by John Grisham 8. A Civil Action, Jonathan Harr 9. A Certain Justice by PD James 10. Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders by John Mortimer
18 October 2006 Billy Bragg's top 10 books on Englishness 1. The Lion and The Unicorn - Socialism and the English Genius by George Orwell 2. England's Dreaming by Jon Savage 3. The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill 4. The Village That Died For England by Patrick Wright 5. England, Half English by Colin MacInnes 6. England The Light by Stuart Clarke 7. England In Particular by Sue Clifford and Angela King 8. The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson 9. A Song For Every Season by Bob Copper 10. The Strange Death of Tory England by Geoffrey Wheatcroft
10 October 2006 Julia Golding's top 10 characters from children's historical fiction 1. Prehistoric: Torak in Michelle Paver's Wolf Brother 2. Roman: Vesuvius in Caroline Lawrence's The Secrets of Vesuvius 3. Dark Ages: Sir Gawain in Roger Lancelyn Green's King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table 4. Medieval: Rebecca in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe 5. Tudor: Shakespeare in Susan Cooper's King of Shadows 6. 17th/18th century: Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island 7. Georgian: Aaron in Jamila Gavin's Coram Boy 8. Victorian: Sara Crewe in Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess 9. Edwardian: Christina in KM Peyton's Flambards and sequels 10. Second world war: Tom Oakley in Michelle Magorian's Goodnight Mister Tom
03 October 2006 Colum McCann's top 10 novels on poets 1. Stoner by John Williams 2. My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey 3. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera 4. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels 5. The Swing of Things by Sean O'Reilly 6. Shadow Box by Antonia Logue 7. Winslow in Love by Kevin Canty 8. Snow by Orham Pamuk 9. The Dog Fighter by Marc Bojanowski 10. Portrait of the Artist by James Joyce
20 September 2006 David Crystal's top 10 books on the English language 1. The Oxford English Dictionary 2. The Use of English by Randolph Quirk 3. A History of the English Language by Albert C Baugh 4. Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases 5. Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson 6. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, Jan Svartvik 7. The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English by Douglas Biber, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, Edward Finegan 8. The Cambridge History of the English Language (editor-in-chief, Richard M Hogg) 9. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage by Pam Peters 10. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language by David Crystal
11 September 2006 Trevor White's top 10 books about dining 1. Bad Food Britain by Joanna Blythman 2. A Meal Observed by Andrew Todhunter 3. The Ballymaloe Cookbook by Myrtle Allen 4. The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten 5. Feast by Roy Strong 6. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser 7. Forking it Over by Alan Richman 8. Tough Cookies by Simon Wright 9. Winner's Dinners by Michael Winner 10. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
04 September 2006 Felix Dennis's top 10 anti-poverty books 1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 2. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 3. The Essays: Counsels Civil and Moral by Francis Bacon 4. The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother 5. Common Sense by Thomas Paine 6. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith 7. Wine by Hugh Johnson 8. The Buildings of England Sir Nikolaus Pevsner 9. An Anthology of World Poetry edited by Mark von Doren 10. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
16 August 2006 Malcolm Tait's top 10 wildlife books 1. Nature Cure by Richard Mabey 2. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling 3. How to be a Bad Birdwatcher by Simon Barnes 4. Field Guide to the Dragonflies and Damselflies of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by Steve Brooks and Richard Lewington 5. Birds of Heaven by Peter Matthiessen 6. Nature's Numbers by Ian Stewart 7. The Future of Life by EO Wilson 8. In Pursuit of Spring by Edward Thomas 9. The World's Vanishing Animals by Cyril Littlewood and DW Ovenden 10. The Peregrine by JA Baker
08 August 2006 Kit Whitfield's top 10 genre-defying novels 1. Beloved by Toni Morrison 2. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood 3. Frost in May by Antonia White 4. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke 5. The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells 6. The Secret History by Donna Tartt 7. The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin 8. Under The Skin by Michel Faber 9. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 10. The Wolf Hunt by Gillian Bradshaw
02 August 2006 John Higgs' top 10 psychedelic non-fiction 1. The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley 2. The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S Thompson 3. The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe 4. High Priest by Timothy Leary 5. Sisters of the Extreme: Women writing on the drug experience by Cynthia Palmer and Michael Horowitz (eds) 6. The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereux 7. DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman, MD 8. Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati Volume 1 by Robert Anton Wilson 9. Bill Hicks: Agent of Evolution by Kevin Booth and Michael Bertin 10. What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff 11. The Road of Excess by Brian Barritt
28 July 2006 Don Mullan's top 10 books on heroes 1. Quiet Strength by Rosa Parks 2. Rabble-rouser for Peace: The Authorised Biography of Desmond Tutu by John Allen 3. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela 4. The Story of My Experiments with Truth: The Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi 5. Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St Thérèse of Lisieux 6. Universe: The Definitive Visual Guide, ed Martin Rees 7. Amelia Earhart: The Sky's No Limit by Lori Van Pelt 8. The Girl in the Picture: The Kim Phuc Story by Denise Chong 9. The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Deaths by Helen Prejean 10. Pelé - The Autobiography
18 July 2006 Mary Watson's top 10 books about maverick women 1. Property by Valerie Martin 2. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters 3. The Other Side of Silence by André Brink 4. The Devil's Chimney by Anne Landsman 5. Little Black Book of Stories by AS Byatt 6. Gardening at Night by Diane Awerbuck 7. Tracks by Louise Erdrich 8. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood 9. Maverick Women by Lauren Beukes 10. The Big Four by Agatha Christie
23 June 2006 Nick Brooks' top 10 literary murderers 1. Patrick Bateman, American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis 2. Francie Brady, The Butcher Boy, Patrick McCabe 3. George Harvey Bone, Hangover Square, Patrick Hamilton 4. Mersault, The Outsider, Albert Camus 5. Raskolnikov, Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky 6. Robert Wringhim, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, James Hogg 7. Macbeth, William Shakespeare 8. Joe, Young Adam, Alexander Trocchi 9. The creature, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley 10. Humbert Humbert, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
19 June 2006 Elizabeth Buchan's top 10 books to comfort and console during a divorce 1. Footsteps by Richard Holmes 2. Flowers and Their Histories by Alice M Coats 3. The Mantelmass Chronicles by Barbara Willard 4. The Brontes by Juliet Barker 5. The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier 6. The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars by Rene Weis 7. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes 8. Gagged and Bound by Natasha Cooper 9. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford 10. Persuasion by Jane Austen
12 June 2006 Sam Mills's top 10 books about the darker side of adolescence 1. Lord of The Flies by William Golding 2. The Outsiders by SE Hinton 3. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 4. Boy Kills Man by Matt Whyman 5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan 6. Catcher In the Rye by JD Salinger 7. The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce 8. A Kestrel For a Knave by Barry Hines 9. The Republic of Trees by Sam Taylor 10. Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
06 June 2006 Pamela Norris's top 10 passionate women writers 1. Lady Gossamer (c. 935-995) 2. The abbess Heloise (c. 1101-1162) 3. Christine de Pizan (1364-1430) 4. Jane Austen (1775-1817) 5. Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) 6. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) 7. LM Montgomery (1874-1942) 8. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) 9. Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950) 10. Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
30 May 2006 Matt Haig's top 10 novels influenced by Shakespeare 1. Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike 2. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley 3. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace 4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 5. Ulysses by James Joyce 6. Money by Martin Amis 7. Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess 8. The Winter of Discontent by John Steinbeck 9. Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis 10. Wise Children by Angela Carter
23 May 2006 Matthew Pearl's top 10 books inspired by Edgar Allan Poe 1. Poe Poe Poe Poe by Daniel Hoffman 2. Labyrinths: Selected Stories by Borges 3. Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 4. Ghost Story by Peter Straub 5. An Antarctic Mystery by Jules Verne 6. The Afterlife of Poe by Scott Peeples 7. Portraits of Poe by Michael Deas 8. The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard and The American Boy by Andrew Taylor 9. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth 10. The Goldbug Variations by Richard Powers
20 March 2006 Michael Symmons Roberts's top 10 verse novels 1. Eugene Onegin by Aleksander Pushkin 2. In Parenthesis by David Jones 3. The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth 4. Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 5. History: the Home Movie by Craig Raine 6. Fredy Neptune by Les Murray 7. Shamrock Tea by Ciaran Carson 8. The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson 9. The Sugar Mile by Glyn Maxwell 10. Byrne by Anthony Burgess
21 February 2006 Dai Smith's top 10 Welsh alternatives to Dylan Thomas 1. Dai Country (1973) and The Former Miss Merthyr Tydfil (1976) by Alun Richards 2. In the Green Tree by Alun Lewis (1948) 3. In Place of Fear by Aneurin Bevan (1952) 4. A Few Selected Exits by Gwyn Thomas (1968) 5. The Selected Poems by John Ormond (1987) 6. I Sent a Letter to My Love by Bernice Rubens (1975) 7. Fields of Praise by Gareth Williams and David Smith (1980) 8. Flame and Slag by Ron Berry (1968) 9. Strike for a Kingdom by Menna Gallie (1959) 10. Chivalry of Crime by Des Barry
06 February 2006 Eve Claxton's top 10 memoirs and autobiographies 1. The Book of My Life by Girolamo Cardano (1576) 2. Harriette Wilson's Memoirs by Harriette Wilson (1825) 3. Autobiographical Fragment by Charles Dickens (1847) 4. The Autobiography of Margaret Oliphant by Margaret Oliphant (1899) 5. Father and Son by Edmund Gosse (1907) 6. My Childhood by Maxim Gorky (1913) 7. If This Is A Man by Primo Levi (1947) 8. Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited by Vladimir Nabokov (1966) 9. The Perfect Stranger PJ Kavanagh (1966) 10. Borrowed Finery by Paula Fox (2001)
30 January 2006 William Cook's top 10 books about comedians 1. Funny Way to be a Hero by John Fisher (Paladin, 1976) 2. That Was the Satire That Was by Humphrey Carpenter (Victor Gollancz, 2000) 3. From Fringe to Flying Circus by Roger Wilmut (Methuen, 1980) 4. Didn't You Kill My Mother in Law? by Roger Wilmut & Peter Rosengard (Methuen, 1989) 5. Gift of the Gag - The Explosion in Irish Comedy by Stephen Dixon & Deirdre Falvey (The Blackstaff Press, 1999) 6. Comics - Ten Years of Comedy at the Assembly Rooms by John Connor (Macmillan, 1990) 7. Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation by John Lahr (Bloomsbury, 1991) 8. Spike Milligan - The Biography by Humphrey Carpenter (Hodder & Stoughton, 2003) 9. Morecambe and Wise by Graham McCann (Fourth Estate, 1999) 10. Frankie Howerd - Stand-up Comic by Graham McCann (Fourth Estate, 2004)