What do you give the academic who has to read more in a year than most people do in a decade? Why, a book of course. Eight heavy-weights dragged themselves away from their sherry parties to whisper their secret wish-list to Katrina Wishart.

Michael Barber , professor of education, Institute of Education.

"I could happily spend my whole life reading good, narrative history, and G. M. Trevelyan's three-volume life of Garibaldi takes some beating. It is a wonderful story, as full of suspense as any crime thriller. The volumes I read were tatty ones from a school library and as far as I know it is out of print. Nothing would give me greater pleasure on Christmas morning than to unwrap a present containing a good second-hand edition.

Very much in print and justly so is Ben Pimlott's magnificent biography of Harold Wilson . Every member of the shadow cabinet should read the tale of how the idealism of 1964 turned into backstabbing paranoia by 1968 and pray that history doesn't repeat itself.

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"I'd also like to commend Trust , Francis Fukuyama's sequel to The End of History and The Last Man , a remarkable and profound analysis of the growing importance of culture in determining economic prosperity. The good news in Trust is its acknowledgement that history has not ended and the case it makes for seeing education, culture and community as preconditions of economic growth, not distractions from it. The bad news is that it reveals just how far, in this divided society, there is to go."

Harry Kroto , University of Sussex, won the 1996 Nobel prize for chemistry for his discovery of an unknown form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene.

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"My main passion is art, especially graphic art and design. I spend a lot of time in specialist bookshops and collect books a bit like a pig pen collects dirt. I am extremely busy so I scarcely have time to read and the only books with words that I can enjoy are those which allow me to dip in when I have a moment.

One book I would like is History of Europe by Norman Davies. I am some sort of product of the European convulsions of the 19th and 20th centuries, and also Norman and I were in the same year at school.

"Ever since I discovered the premier journal of the graphic designer, GRAPHIS , I have subscribed to it. A photograph of Buckminsterfuller's geodesic dome in a special Montreal Expo67 issue was an image which led me and my colleagues, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley, to the cage structure of the amazing C60 molecule in 1985. The Graphis Press also publishes elegant annuals of outstanding work in design, photography, posters, etc. Occasionally one can pick up a second-hand copy but buying one new is a bit expensive. I would like to get this year's Graphis Photography as I already have the companion design annual.

Richard Luce , retiring vice chancellor, Buckingham University.

"I would choose Self Help by Samuel Smiles with a foreword by Lord Harris of High Cross. This century we have seen the growth of the welfare state and an increasing dependence upon the state by individuals. There is a growing international reassessment, both of the affordability of a substantial welfare state and a questioning of the moral effects of individual dependency. First published in 1859, Self Help is about the nobility of strengthening one's character and should provide food for thought.

"My second choice is Eve's Renegades by Valerie Sanders, a study of the work of four Victorian antifeminist women novelists. In the last century we began to see the first signs of the feminist movement. Today, women are playing an increasingly important role in society and this is to be welcomed, but we are now perhaps seeing a more alarming aspect of feminism which is leading to a decline in respect for women. The thinking of the last century on this issue may enlighten me as to how we should consider this contemporary problem."

Julie Theriot , fellow, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, United States.

"The book I would most like for Christmas, is The Ants by Bert Holldobler and Edward Wilson. In this richly illustrated monograph we have ants who herd aphids as cattle, who weave nests using silk helpfully spun by their own larvae, and predator ants who hunt in packs. The behaviours of the nearly 300 living genera of ants illustrate a variety of principles from altruism and group survival strategies through hierarchy, competition, and social flexibility.

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"For a study of human society my choice would be The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha edited by James H. Charlesworth. They contain 52 new translations of texts ranging from the third century bc to the ninth century ad, none of which are found in the Bible or in the Apocrypha (those books included in the Greek but not the Hebrew Old Testament). Many of the texts have an apocalyptic slant, and what better way could there be to anticipate the coming millennium than to pore over these ominous ancient writings on cold winter nights?"

K. N. Chaudhuri , professor of history, European University Institute, Florence.

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"Florence in the winter months is above all a world of colours, the sky a vast mirror reflecting all shades of white, grey, blue, and black. It is for this reason that I have chosen Colour and Culture by John Gage. It is a work of prodigious scholarship and informs on a whole range of themes from the iconography of Byzantine mosaics to the colour theories of Paul C¨¦zanne and Henri Matisse. I did not know, for instance, that 20th-century composers and painters alike were fascinated by the "tight yet flexible structure of the Bach fugue".

" Race: The History of an Idea in the West by Ivan Hannaford deals with a different kind of colour. With the decline of a Christian identity and the retreat of a militant Islam, western self-identity was increasingly replaced by the dialectics of colour which divided the world into white and non-white binary categories. This is a book which transcends the theme of mere race and looks at all the fundamental issues of social consciousness."

Richard Majors , an American doctor of psychology, is at Manchester University on a Leverhulme Fellowship.

"I would chose Miz Lucy's Cookies: And Other Links in My Black Family Support System , by Eddie Faye Gates, and I would recommend it as a great Christmas gift for every family in Britain, or anywhere else in the world. Why? Because it transcends the narrow limits of biography and black studies; it gets to the heart of the universal human experience.

"Readers of all races, religions, geographic origins and backgrounds can learn much from this book: from history and geography to sociology. There are fascinating photographs of black Americans at work and at play. Gates, the oldest of eight surviving children of poor black Oklahoma sharecroppers, has been described as a master storyteller. She and all seven of her siblings are college graduates, so this book is also an American success story.

"People all over the world seem to be thirsting for a way to overcome racial, ethnic, religious, and other forms of conflict so that all mankind can live in peace and harmony. This warm, witty book will help to pave the way for that. Hear the message from a master storyteller. Oh what a story!"

Tessa Blackstone , master of Birkbeck College.

"Any academic book that sells 200,000 copies within a year of being published must have something going for it. Norberto Bobbio's Left and Right: the Significance of a Political Distinction has become an academic bestseller in Italy and has just been published here. The argument that traditional categories of right and left no longer have much meaning has been made skilfully and compellingly by Tony Giddens and others. I have never been quite convinced, although I do not accept John Gray's charge ( THES , November 15) that we sceptics on the left think anyone who questions the distinction between right and left must be an enemy of the left. Not true; not fair. Bobbio's book defends the salience of the distinction with verve and ingenuity. Ideologies are shifting but that does not mean the old categories of right and left do not count any more.

" A People's Tragedy: the Russian Revolution 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes is the first "post-communist" history of the revolution and the opening of the archives since 1989 apparently provided Figes with a wealth of new material. According to all the reviews this book brilliantly conveys the history of the revolution through the experience of individual participants."

Stephen Heppell , director, Ultralab, Anglia Polytechnic University.

"Two books under the tree, or would I prefer two WWW addresses or two CD ROMS? Probably not, there are few web sites that work reliably in the bath or up a ski slope.

"I would welcome Extra-Ordinary Human-Computer Interaction , edited by Alistair D. N. Edwards, because it takes account of the individual differences between users of software. There is a real danger that as we evolve more and more compelling multimedia learning environments we will require standard users who must be comfortable with so much: text, aural ambience, speech, and so many signs and signifiers. Edward's book focuses on designing for people with disabilities and helps us to remember that all too often poor design has been more of a hindrance than a help.

A second gem is Don Norman's Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine . His provocatively straightforward examples challenge and delight. It is impossible to read this book without repeating something from it to a student or colleague within 24 hours. It seems churlish to exclude anyone else from the fun and I commend it to you in that spirit.

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