What makes a great adventure novel? For Alex Bescoby, filmmaker, traveller and judge of the 2026 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, it’s the ability to transport readers to unfamiliar worlds and bring history vividly to life. Here, he discusses the six shortlisted novels, from ancient Britain to revolutionary India, exploring stories of endurance, rebellion and remarkable perseverance in the face of hardship.

Biographies are a great way for kids to feel inspired by people who have achieved extraordinary things. And by enabling children to see the world through other people’s eyes, biographies can introduce them to different times and places, helping to broaden their perspectives. Here is a selection of biographies for kids that have been recommended on Five Books. 

Each year, judges for the Booker Prize whittle their longlist down to a five- or six-book shortlist for the title of the best new novel of the previous twelve months. This year, the finalists include two previous Booker winners– Douglas Stuart and Marlon James – and a previous shortlistee in Elizabeth Strout. We asked Rebecca Liu, 2026 judge and Guardian journalist, to talk us through the shortlisted novels.

Mesopotamia, the fertile region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, is a hugely significant part of human history, yet has often been left out of the classical civilisations curriculum. Here, Moudhy Al-Rashid, author of Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History, recommends five recent books about Mesopotamia that shed light not only milestones of history, but on individual lives thousands of years ago.

Knitting provides a slow, screen-free creative outlet, and opens up a wealth of style choices that you can’t buy on the high street. We asked the author and knitting teacher Rosie Fletcher to recommend five knitting books to take you from total beginner to jumper enthusiast, via troubleshooting manuals, easy-knit projects, stitch dictionaries, and vintage patterns.

Sci fi with a touch of humour can help us explore the oddities of existence, argues bestselling author Andrew Hunter Murray. He picks five books that made him laugh, from dystopias to outer space to crime thrillers, each with a unique perspective to make us chuckle – sometimes at ourselves.

James Baldwin was a hugely influential figure in 20th-century writing – "one of the foremost American authors of his generation" – explains the literary scholar Ahmed Honeini, as he offers an overview of Baldwin's remarkably varied output, which comprises "extraordinarily creative" fiction and playwriting as well as a body of searing social commentary.

The weapons and tactics of war may change, but the human experience of battle does not, argues Iain MacGregor, author of Battle: The Moments that Transformed Warfare from Ancient Greece to Ukraine. He highlights five books that bring that experience to life, from the ordinary soldier at Agincourt to the brutal realities of the Pacific War and the Falklands.

Historical fiction can be both a valid and a valuable mode of examining unrecorded or forgotten figures in history, argues the award-winning novelist Alice Jolly. That is especially the case for women's history, which is so often thinly documented. Here she highlights five immersive novels that foreground female stories.

When Jenny Evans was writing her memoir, Don't Let It Break You, Honey, she read lots of other memoirs to figure out how best to go about it—studying how their authors shaped a life into a story, recreated the past and navigated the line between memory and fact. Here, she shares the five memoirs that taught her the most.