Smash hit

Blood, Iron and Gold by Christian Wolmar

The Sunday Times review by James McConnachie: this epic history reveals just how much the modern world owes to the spread of the railways

The English Opium Eater by Robert Morrison

The Sunday Times review by John Carey: drug addict and alcoholic, Thomas De Quincey was one of English literature’s least savoury characters

Shooting Leave by John Ure

The Sunday Times review by Robert Harris: An entertaining account of the young British officers who risked life and limb to gather intelligence in...

Literary criticism by Frank Kermode and Zadie Smith

A fascination with E.M. Forster sent Kermode and Smith on a long journey

The Bedside Book of Beasts: A Wildlife Miscellany By Graeme Gibson

This celebration of hunting animals is not for the faint-hearted

The week’s paperback nonfiction: November 21, 2009

Running: A Global History by Thor Gotaas

From Sumerians to Usain Bolt, Man has always been obsessed with running. Maybe we’re made that way

In short: the week’s nonfiction; November 21, 2009

Palin's memoir: a thick book from thin material

Love, revenge and politics make for an action-packed book which will go down a treat among the Republican's allies

The House of Borgia by Christopher Hibbert and Martyrs and Murderers by Stuart Carroll

The Sunday Times review by Nick Rennison

Martin Luther King by Godfrey Hodgson

The Sunday Times review by Stephen Robinson: without Martin Luther King, as this book argues, would there have been no Barack Obama?

Up and Down Stairs by Jeremy Musson

The Sunday Times review by Frances Wilson: an intriguing study of the changes in the master-servant relationship since the Middle Ages

The Fighting Temeraire by Sam Willis

The Sunday Times review by Nick Rennison: cleverly presented portrait of a ship and all who sailed in her

Growing up Bin Laden by Jean Sasson, Najwa Bin Laden and Omar bin Laden

The Sunday Times review by Robert Harris: the insanely rigorous privations of family life with Osama reveal the disturbing private side of the...

Bob Marley by Chris Salewicz

The Sunday Times review by Robert Sandall: the new Hendrix, the black Dylan: Marley filled a gap in the 1970s music scene that made him a global...

Cheever by Blake Bailey

The Sunday Times review by Stephen Amidon: the hidden life of a man whose tales of philandering commuters and lonely housewives defined Mad Men...

Open by Andre Agassi

The Sunday Times review by Lynne Truss: he hated the game, played with alarming aggression and hid behind his hair; all is revealed in this...

The Arabs by Eugene Rogan

The Sunday Times review by Max Hastings: an authoritative study goes back to the 16th century to track the course of Arab resentment of the West

Pops by Terry Teachout

The Sunday Times review by Robert Sandall: in public he was smiling and sunny, but the real Louis Armstrong, as this excellent life shows, was a far...

Waiting for Princess Margaret by Emma Tennant

The Sunday Times review by Lynn Barber: fact, fiction and memory become a fuzzy blur in this tale of growing up in a Scottish baronial castle

Blood, Iron and Gold by Christian Wolmar

The Sunday Times review by James McConnachie: this epic history reveals just how much the modern world owes to the spread of the railways

The English Opium Eater by Robert Morrison

The Sunday Times review by John Carey: drug addict and alcoholic, Thomas De Quincey was one of English literature’s least savoury characters