Here are some wonderful non-fiction recommendations for your holiday reading over the summer!

 

Pathfinding by Kerri Andrews

Shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2025

What if losing your way is how a new path begins?

From the author of Wanderers: A History of Women Walking comes the story of one mother's journey from wilderness to freedom.

After the upheaval of becoming a mother, walker Kerri Andrews finds herself carrying the idea that maybe the hills are no longer for her. Yet, as she begins to uncover hidden stories of other mothers who’ve walked, she realises that there may be a way back to adventure – and herself. So Kerri begins small, with walks along beaches and in cities, joined by women whose lives have also been reshaped by motherhood.

And gradually, as her journeys grow bolder, drawing her to the valleys and peaks of her past, a new path begins to open. One that will offer the possibility of reclaiming both the mountains, and her freedom. The result is an inspirational story for any mother who has ever felt the pull of the outside.

‘Left me itching to lace up my boots and follow the call of the path.’ Laura Pashby, author of Chasing Fog

‘Powerful and unflinchingly honest’ Annabel Abbs, author of Windswept

'An invitation that will leave you desperate to step outside.’ Resurgence & Ecologist

 

The Story of Birds by Steve Brusatte

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

'Steve Brusatte has a rare gift for bringing the distant past vividly and fascinatingly to life' - Bill Bryson

'One of the stars of modern palaeontology' – National Geographic

A New Scientist and Times most anticipated book of 2026, from the bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. Billions of birds share the planet with us. With their flamboyant plumage and joyous dawn serenades, many of them are impossible to miss.

But how did they get here, how did they break the bounds of Earth and begin to fly, and how does their legacy shape our world?In delightfully energetic prose, expert palaeontologist Steve Brusatte takes us through their 150-million-year history, from their origins among small carnivorous dinosaurs to the 10,000-plus species that thrive today. Along the way, we meet fantastic birds from all around the world, some known only through fossils. There are elephant birds that stand as high as a basketball hoop and lay eggs as big as watermelons; demon ducks that weigh more than cows; aeroplane-sized seabirds that soar the world’s thermals; and predatory penguins the size of gorillas.

Lively, majestic and full of wonder, The Story of Birds will ensure you never see birds the same way again.

'Steve Brusatte tells the amazing story of birds with enthusiasm and brio' – Henry Gee

'An eye-opening tour into the amazing world of birds' – Venki Ramakrishnan

 

The Making of the Modern Middle East by Jeremy Bowen

Now updated with a new chapter on the 7 October attacks and more.

 A Sunday Times Paperback of the Year, Spectator and New Statesman Book of the Year

‘An illuminating and riveting read’ – Jonathan Dimbleby

'Arresting... excellent, doom-freighted' – The Times

Jeremy Bowen, the International Editor of the BBC, has been covering the Middle East since 1989 and is uniquely placed to explain its complex past and its troubled present. In The Making of the Modern Middle East he offers a gripping and invaluable guide, showing how it came to be and what its future might hold.

In part based on his acclaimed podcast, ‘Our Man in the Middle East’, Bowen takes us on a journey across the Middle East and through its history. He meets ordinary men and women on the front line, and their leaders, whether brutal or benign. He explores the power games that have so often wreaked devastation on civilian populations as those leaders, whatever their motives, jostle for political, religious and economic control.

Clear throughout is Bowen’s deep understanding of the political, cultural and religious differences between countries as diverse as Erdogan’s Turkey, Netanyahu’s Israel and Palestine, whether Hamas-controlled Gaza or the West Bank. His long experience of covering events in the region make this an extraordinarily powerful account of one of the world's greatest problems.

 

Rebel Musix, Scribe on a Vibe by Vivien Goldman

 

'Essential reading: the making of history as it was happening. Vivien was there' Jarvis Cocker

Vivien Goldman was the first, most passionate and indubitably the most elegant chronicler of reggae, funk, free jazz and Afrobeat music: a pioneering female writer who shaped the Golden Age of music journalism in her image. Rebel Musix, Scribe on a Vibe collects Goldman's extraordinary output from 1975 onwards and features encounters with everyone from Brian Eno to the Sex Pistols, Patti Smith to Fela Kuti, Curtis Mayfield to Can - and of course, her good friend Bob Marley.

It is both an unrivalled window onto late twentieth century counterculture and the indispensable chronicle of a legendary 'Punk Professor' who single-handedly changed the course of music writing forever. No music fan should be without it.

 

The Accidental Tourist - Ned Boulting

FROM THE WINNER OF THE SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2024 CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR: 1923'A fascinating and inspiring book... An excellent read' – Phil Liggett MBE

Embark on a whirlwind (and worldwide) tour of cycling stories from one of the nation’s favourite commentators. Join Ned Boulting once more as he brings his cycling stories up to the present day – full of recollections of chaotic, memorable and sometimes surreal encounters with all the key riders.

While the Tour de France takes centre stage, his horizons expand far beyond its confines to take in races across Europe as well as to fascinating locations in the Middle East, China and Malaysia. There are behind-the-scenes chapters on life at the Giro d'Italia; the growth of women's racing; forays into podcasting; replacing the great Phil Liggett as ITV's main commentator; the Flemish classics; and the life and times of Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish. Ride along as Ned travels around the UK with a stage show about the Tour de France, and on the many days that he and David Millar have spent quixotically riding folding bikes up and down enormous mountains.

 

The Savage Landscape - Cal Flyn

'The best non-fiction writer of her generation' THE TIMES

'When I read Flyn’s writing I would often exhale with a sense of wonder' GUARDIAN 'Fascinating and masterfully written' ALICE WINN

 A lyrical exploration of the world’s most forbiddingly remote places, the supposedly uninhabited wildernesses of the world – and the humans who have always been there, by award-winning and critically acclaimed writer Cal Flyn. The Savage Landscape takes us into the wild – deep into dark forests, to the top of mountains and into the heart of deserts. It addresses our deep yearnings to be awed and inspired by landscapes that remain beyond our reach and examines what nature gets up to in the absence of humans.

It is a book full of ideas, beauty and adventure, and one that asks provocative questions about the nature of wilderness and how wild places might be appreciated or preserved. As with her earlier book Islands of Abandonment, Flyn focuses each chapter on eleven locations chosen for their physical beauty, their perceived isolation and the moral or emotional complexity of the human stories that can be found there. In her search for wilderness, we meet ascetics in search of theophany in the desert; lonely shepherds seeing off wolves under the stars; missionaries preaching from shacks deep in the jungle; wise lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks; hunters in the African bush; volcanophiles creeping dangerously close to molten lava; and ocean vessels plunging through the immense waters of the Southern Ocean to Antarctica.

The Savage Landscape will change any reader’s understanding of our place in the world, and how we relate to the other residents of this planet – human and animal. It is a profound and beautiful book about spirituality, environmentalism and the sublime by one of the most gifted writers at work today. 'A book that takes you into the wild and ignites the imagination.

Compelling and thought provoking, Flyn’s journey into the heart of the matter challenges us to rethink the relationship between human culture and nature' SUE STUART SMITH

 'The Savage Landscape enthralled me—leading me spellbound through our encounters with and imaginings of wilderness and its many faces. In Flyn’s hands, a deeply researched history is given vibrant, propulsive life' JESSICA J LEE