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Sir David Bell, vice-chancellor, University of Reading, is reading Benjamin Johncock¡¯s The Last Pilot (Myriad Editions, 2015). ¡°Johncock¡¯s impressive debut takes us back to the era of test pilots and the dawn of the space age. Jim Harrison is a man pushing technology to the limits at the same time as dealing with immense personal tragedy. This clever fusion of fact and fiction, combined with a sparse writing style, is a Great American Novel ¨C written by a Brit.¡±

Richard Bosworth, senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, is reading Mimmo Franzinelli¡¯s L¡¯arma segreta del Duce: La vera storia del Carteggio Churchill-Mussolini (Rizzoli, 2015). ¡°The UK has a ludicrously reverential Churchill myth. But in Italy there is a similarly overblown view of him as ruthless Machiavel and killer. Popular historiography there maintains that proof lies in the ¡®lost¡¯ Churchill-Mussolini correspondence. But now Franzinelli has brilliantly demonstrated that ¡®falsehood is the only truth¡¯ in the manifold surrounding conspiracy theories. Should the British government offer him a title if the result is the end of a history war that has run on since 1945?¡±

Carina Buckley, learning skills tutor, Southampton Solent University, is reading Patricia A. DeYoung¡¯s Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: A Relational/Neurobiological Approach (Routledge, 2015). ¡°DeYoung identifies shame as lying at the root of many of the issues she encounters as a psychotherapist, and uses it as a framework for understanding the feeling of unworthiness that can plague and disrupt some people¡¯s lives. (Philip Larkin had it right, for sure.) She offers readers and clients ¡®an engaged presence, not advice¡¯ in clear, caring, valuable prose.¡±

Paul Greatrix, registrar, University of Nottingham, is reading Stanley Middleton¡¯s An After Dinner¡¯s Sleep (Windmill, 2014). ¡°It¡¯s terrific to see Middleton¡¯s books reissued after decades in the literary wilderness. This novel is a great example of his understated, subtle and incisive observations of suburban existence, in which a widower has his life turned upside down by an old flame who knocks on his door one day. Finely wrought.¡±

Gina Rippon, chair of cognitive neuroimaging at Aston University and honorary fellow of the British Science Association, appears this week at the . ¡°Oliver Sacks has a wonderfully quirky way of seeing through the eyes of those whose damaged brains can be a source of valuable information for neuroscientists, and of reminding us that our ¡®participants¡¯ are people too. On the Move: A Life (Picador, 2015), Sacks¡¯ latest autobiography and, sadly, probably his final book, promises the same kind of insight into his own story and how it produced this unique commentator on the human condition.¡±