#CultureEditorschoice

Robert Hardman’s magisterial biography, full of detail about the King, the Queen and the Sussexes alike, will become a historical document

Nicholas Royle's new book David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine is bizarre, brilliant, and unlike anything you've ever read

The comedian’s trip through medieval history may pass at breakneck speed, but it’s an impressive blend of irreverence, accuracy and wit

Matthew Parker’s brilliant new book One Fine Day: Britain’s Empire uses one day in September 1923 to explore the empire at its height

Daniel Cowling’s book Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans shows how weary officials (and actors) tried to piece together post-war Germany

A strong field of nominees has produced a slate of fiction you’ll want to spend time with – and will be surprised by

The ‘men in grey suits’ appeared a century ago, took up arms in the Heath era – and as this superb book shows, haven’t laid them down since

Elaine Feeney returns with How to Build a Boat, about a neurodiverse schoolboy, but the purchase and power of her debut are missing

The Monty Python star discovers the story of his forgotten relative in Great-Uncle Harry, an empathetic work of family history

Cara McGoogan’s The Poison Line is a revelatory work of non-fiction, tracing a shocking international scandal that ruined countless lives

Tan Twan Eng’s Booker-longlisted The House of Doors fictionalises a real-life murder case and gives a refreshingly balanced view of empire

Ayòbámi Adébáyò’s Booker-longlisted A Spell of Good Things is a tale of haves and have-nots with the sweep of 19th-century fiction

Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures begins a new fantasy series, and even in a crowded contemporary field, it’s a tour-de-force

Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, deservingly longlisted for the Booker, circles intelligently around an Irish family mired in friction

In Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow’s superb Booker-longlisted debut, an autistic woman sees a pair of interlopers inveigle their way into her life

This season, spy thrillers and crime stories are sweeping us from 19th-century Essex to the grit of California at its worst

Sasha Swire shocked the political world with her first book. Her second will only shock those who expect self-awareness or concision

Ed Owens has some radical proposals for the monarchy, with bureaucratic innovations, new ‘King’s Days’ – and the King’s abdication

In this entertaining history of the West’s fascination with Indian spirituality, Mick Brown covers all manner of curious characters

Yascha Mounk’s new book mounts a defence of liberalism against its foes on Left and Right – but is the ideology its own worst enemy?