Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. The Lost Spells is a small-format marvel, connecting us with the natural world (the most heart-lifting experience). Morris’s stunning illustrations accompany the word-spells about animals and plants. This is a follow-up to the large-format bestseller The Lost Words.
Bernardine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other is a freewheeling, multi-layered novel. Bursting with life, it deservedly (co-) won the Man Booker Prize in 2019.
Why the Moon Travels by Oein DeBhairduin is a ground-breaking and beautifully written, illustrated and produced book of short folklore stories from the Traveller community, tenderly re-imagined by DeBhairduin.
Hans Rosling’s Factfulness is guaranteed to make you feel better about the world, beyond any short-term problems we may have. This evidence-based fact-driven analysis of the modern world proves that that there never been a better time in history to be alive.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell might seem a surprising choice for this list, since it confronts loss full-on (the death of Shakespeare’s only son at the age of 11), but it is beautifully written, evokes a world superbly, and in the end is about the persistence and centrality of love.
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