The Reading List: Nobel Prize winners

Politics

'This Child Will Be Great' by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Harper Collins, £16.99)

In 2005, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a co-winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, was elected the first, and so far only, female president in Africa.

Her memoirs follow her incredible journey from a humble upbringing and young marriage, through domestic abuse and imprisonment during the civil war, and finally her role in bringing peace to Liberia – the country that she now runs.

Personal history

'Dreams From My Father' by Barack Obama (Canongate, £12.99)

Originally released in 1995, Obama's first book recounts the future President's early years, his education and his research into a diverse family history. Written at the age of 33, before any thought of a career in politics, the eloquent book depicts a young man in search for meaning in his life as a black American with a distinctly divided ancestry.

Medicine

'Cancer Vaccines (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences)' by Ralph Steinman, Kenichiro Hasumi, Olivera Finn, Jacques Banchereau (Wiley, Blackwell, £75)

A huge collection that includes work from Ralph Steinman the scientist who died just days before the Nobel Prize announcement. A dense medical text but one that contains chapters from the world's leading cancer researchers explaining recent steps forward in preventive approaches .

Literature

Sorgegondolen by Tomas Transtromer (Green Integer, £7.79)

Sorgegondolen, translated to "The Sorrow Gondola" by Michael McGriff and Mikaela Grassl was Tomas Transtromer's first book to be published after his stroke in 1990. Selling more than 30,000 editions in his native Sweden, the book holds a collection of poems by the 80-year-old poet.

History

Nobel: A Century of Prize Winners by Michael Worek (Firefly Books Ltd, £14.95)

Since the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, some of the world's most famous, most innovative and most important individuals in science, literature and politics have been honoured. This book tells the stories of 200 of the most significant winners of the last century.