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A week in books: A rich harvest of non-fiction

Boyd Tonkin
Saturday 24 August 2002 00:00 BST
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This autumn, two sorts of books will prove more or less unavoidable. First, a clutch of high-maintenance novelists (Tony Parsons, Zadie Smith, Donna Tartt, Will Self, Irvine Welsh) will begin to earn back the pots of cash they cost. Second, an invasion of pricey celebrity memoirs will land from the planet where economic laws don't apply. There, Kylie's photo-album commands a cool million; even Dale Winton enjoys a massive packet. Pets win prizes, indeed.

Amid the marketing mayhem, intelligent non-fiction will struggle for a fair slice of the limelight. Yet the next few months will see an uncommonly rich harvest of science, history, memoir, biography, travel and argument. So here's The Independent's choice of two dozen autumnal gems. Go in search of one whenever you feel that the book-biz ought to offer us more than a frantic supermarket sweep.

Peter Ackroyd, Albion (Chatto) Erudite, eccentric quest for "the English imagination" in art across the centuries.

Martin Amis, Koba the Dread (Cape) A curse on the Commies, a spat with Hitchens – and a tribute to Kingsley.

Neal Ascherson, Stone Voices (Granta) Elegant, reflective journalist-traveller returns to Scotland and its dark past.

Linda Colley, Captives (Cape) How the Empire's child waifs and strays both suffered, and shaped, British rule.

William Dalrymple, White Mughals (HarperCollins) Brits and Indians who happily mixed before Raj racism arrived.

Roddy Doyle, Rory and Ita (Cape) Memoir of his parents and their Ireland, with boo-hoo-hoo as well as ha-ha-ha.

Carol Ann Duffy, Feminine Gospels (Picador) Poetry's queen of hearts entrances with more distaff-side history.

Orlando Figes, Natasha's Dance (Allen Lane) Russian culture interpreted, with a flair for drama and panorama.

John Gray, Straw Dogs (Granta) A philosopher let off the leash liberates the stale debate on "animal rights".

Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times (Allen Lane) The great historian's memoir explains why he stuck with Marxism.

Lisa Jardine, On a Grander Scale (HarperCollins) Wren viewed in the round, as polymathic scientist and builder.

Steve Jones, Y (Little, Brown) Top geneticist tracks down the odd evolution of that most baffling of creatures: man.

Anthony Julius, Transgressions (Thames & Hudson) The icons of "subversive" art given a tough cross-examination.

Roger Lewis, Anthony Burgess (Faber) Biography's wild man gets stuck into his counterpart in modern fiction.

Fiona MacCarthy, Byron (John Murray) Poetic justice as a fine biographer rises to the most seductive challenge.

Jeremy Paxman, The Political Animal (M Joseph) Who else would you rather read skewering the Westminster tribe?

Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate (Allen Lane) Psychologist attacks the "denial of human nature" in modern thought.

Martin Rees, Our Final Century (Heinemann) Astronomer Royal argues that this might be humankind's last gasp.

Iain Sinclair, London Orbital (Granta) Surrealism hits the outer suburbs as the poet of urban grot tramps the M25.

John Szwed, So What (Heinemann) A sound life of Miles Davis harmonises the jazz virtuoso's many kinds of blue.

Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari (Hamish Hamilton) Back on the road, with an African trek from Cairo to the Cape.

Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men (Faber) The Brum chums (Wedgwood, Watt, etc) who forged an industrial society.

Marina Warner, Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds (Oxford) The magic of shape-shifting in art and literature.

Adeline Yen Mah, One Written Word is Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold (HarperCollins) The title's both a Chinese proverb – one of many explored here, in the context of Chinese history – and a fine motto for any dedicated reader. But, unless you're Kylie, don't take it too literally.

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