Highlights of the Season
Business & Economics
HarperNorth, 9 April, hb, £16.99, 9780008737603
In this guide-that’s- not-a-guide, metal detectorist cousins Bruce and Gray explore their local landscape, getting to grips with the hobby, history and themselves along the way.
Biography & Memoirs
Laura Murphy The Honeymoon Leap, 2 April, hb, £18.99, 9781785129513
Tyler Goodspeed Recession Basic Books, 12 March, hb, £25, 9781399832250
What causes a recession? Leading US economist Goodspeed aims to provide an explanation for why recessions start, how long they last, and how to avoid them in the first place.
Sociology
Catherine Carr Who’s The Favourite? Oneworld, 19 March, hb, £18.99, 9781836431282
Taking in birth order, stereotypes, favouritism, blended families, trauma, siblings with additional needs, bereavement and more, this exploration of the sibling relationship is based on the author’s podcast Relatively, and features candid sibling interviews with the likes of Nick and Gill Hornby, Manni and Reuben Coe and Chris and Xand van Tulleken.
This tear-jerker of a heartbreaking love story tells of the author’s experience of losing her partner a month before their planned wedding, and then deciding to go on her honeymoon as she stumbles through her grief and beyond.
Wendy Holden, Sean Hepburn Ferrer Intimate Audrey
HarperCollins, 9 April, hb, £25, 9780008806422
This only official biography of Audrey Hepburn, written with her son Sean, features her personal history, life philosophy and an intimate look at how she lived beyond the spotlight.
Harrison Hill The Oracle’s Daughter Little, Brown, 9 April, hb, £22, 9780349136851
April Archaeology
The true story of one woman’s escape from an American cult, led by her mother, a woman who called herself The Prophetess. It aims to illuminate the strange world of religious cults – and how we are more vulnerable to extremism than we might like to think.
Robert Hardman The Essential Elizabeth Macmillan, 9 April, hb, £18.99, 9781035097302
From royal biographer Hardman and published to mark the centenary of her birth, an “intimate and revealing” portrait of Elizabeth II, daughter, wife, mother and queen.
Catherine Ostler The Renoir Girls Simon & Schuster, 9 April, hb, £30, 9781471172595
Eleanor Bruce, Lucilla Gray Things We Found in the Ground
Spring/Summer 2026
In 1881, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted two young sisters from a Jewish banking dynasty at their home in Paris’ grand 8th arrondissement. It is the starting point for this “astonishing” true story of splendour, scandal and tragedy in Golden Age Paris and of one family
at the heart of modern Europe’s struggles.
Margaret Drabble The Great Good Places Canongate Books, 9 April, hb, £16.99, 9781837265374
Drawing on decades of reading, writing and observation, Drabble reflects on the complex business of ageing, the strange workings of memory and on the “great good places”, the childhood homes, coastal sanctuaries and cherished libraries that shape who we are.
Blake Morrison On Memoir: An A-Z of Life Writing
Borough Press, 9 April, hb, £16.99, 9780008760915
Gleaned from a lifetime as a passionate reader of others’ lives, as well as an unflinchingly honest chronicler of his own, this life-writing compendium promises a trove of literary exploration, taking us from AI to ethics, to politics, to sex.
Rosa Campbell The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared Melville House Publishing, 16 April, hb, £25, 9781685892319
The story of feminist Shere Hite and how her notorious work, The Hite Report, revolutionised how we think about sex, marriage and the female orgasm.
Katriona O’Sullivan Hungry Wildfire, 23 April, hb, £18.99, 9781035427772
Nicholas Royle Finders, Keepers Salt Publishing, 14 April, pb, £10.99, 9781784633417
Disguised as a series of memoir-inflected essays, this book about collecting second-hand books tells the stories that hide between the lines of the books that fill the shelves of charity shops and second-hand bookshops up and down the country.
Lena Dunham Famesick Fourth Estate, 14 April, hb, £18.99, 9780008384210
In this “rowdy, frank” reflection on illness, fame, sex and everything in between, Dunham asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain.
Matthew Sturgis Relative Failures Apollo, 16 April, hb, £25, 9781804543665
A triple biography of three respectively tragic, daring and forward-thinking fin-de-siècle figures
Raised in a home marked by poverty, addiction and abuse, O’Sullivan defied the odds; becoming a university professor and successful author. But beneath the achievements lay a private struggle with her body, her worth and the unrelenting drive to be enough. In this memoir, she documents her lifelong search for self-acceptance.
usually overshadowed by their more famous siblings: Willie Wilde, Mabel Beardsley and Howard Sturgis.
St Ives to the wild coast of Ireland, to the warm water and glowing sun of Phuket, the 13 essays in this anthology by authors including Nicola Dinan and Noreen Masud aim to transport us to shores far and near.
the infamous Northville Estate in London.
John Kampfner Braver New World Atlantic Books, 16 April, hb, £25, 9781805462507
At a time when democracies seem paralysed by fear, Kampfner travels to 10 countries – including Austria, Morocco, Taiwan and Japan – that are confronting our shared challenges with bravery and imagination. “What unites them is a refusal to accept that difficult problems are unsolvable.”
Omer Bartov Israel: What Went Wrong? Fern Press, 23 April, hb, £20, 9781911717690
Thelma McGough From Me to You HarperNorth, 23 April, hb, £20, 9780008809027
Who was John Lennon’s first girlfriend? Who is the only woman to have dated Lennon and McCartney? And Tom Wolfe. And married Roger McGough? The answer is: the author of this “unmissable” memoir of a life at the heart of 1960s culture.
Christopher Priest, Nina Allan The Illuminated Man Bloomsbury Continuum, 23 April, hb, £22, 9781399417495
In 2024, Allan’s husband, the novelist Christopher Priest, died from prostate cancer, the same disease that killed the man whose biography he had spent his last months working on: JG Ballard. Exploring the history and themes of Ballard’s life, this is also a love letter from Allan to Priest.
Current Affairs
Symeon Brown The Good, the Black and the Boujee
Dialogue Books, 16 April, hb, £18.99, 9780349702490
Edward Chisholm Murder In Paris “68 Monoray, 23 April, hb, £22, 9781800962675
The author of A Waiter in Paris delves deep into the 1960s Parisian underworld and an unsolved murder that brought the country to its knees.
Various Over the Water Daunt Originals, 23 April, pb, £10.99, 9781917092685
From the glimmering coast of Cornwall’s
This “provocative” reckoning with how class and gender shape modern Black Britain profiles the invisible tribes wielding influence in Britain; and delves into the psychological and material cost of class aspiration.
Ebony Reid Trapped Life Merky Books, 16 April, hb, £18.99, 9781529911893
Drawing on a year spent on her childhood estate, this “searingly candid” narrative shatters sensationalist headlines to reveal the authentic lives of the mandem on
A leading genocide scholar explores the history of Zionism, Israel’s lurch towards extreme oppression and violence, and why it stands accused of crimes against humanity.
Aziz Abu Sarah, Maoz Inon The Future Is Peace Canongate Books, 23 April, hb, £20, 9781837264070
“Two activists: one Palestinian, one Israeli. A unique friendship and a life-changing journey across the holy land.” Despite huge personal losses, Palestinian Abu Sarah and Israeli Inon explain why and how they are dedicated to finding a solution to the bitter war that has decimated their families and ancient lands.
General History
Peter Jones Self-Help from the Middle Ages Hutchinson Heinemann, 2 April, hb, £20, 9781529154863
This “disarming, surprising” history explores art, mysticism and literature to show how the Middle Ages used the seven deadly sins as a roadmap for a happier and healthier life.
Marc David Baer Children of Abraham Profile Books, 2 April, hb, £25, 9781805223610
Said to be a “timely and indispensable” new analysis of Muslim-Jewish relations free from myths and counter-myths, by the author of the Wolfson Prize-shortlisted The Ottomans.
Robert Verkaik The Writer and the Traitor Headline Welbeck Non-Fiction, 9 April, hb, £22, 9781035418176
The author of The Traitor of Colditz returns to
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