A Different Drummer By William Melvin Kelley And Four Other Books That Will Make You Look Smart On Your Commute

First published in 1962, this lost classic has been reissued after a New Yorker piece where journalist Kathryn Schultz discovers a mention of William Kelley in an inscribed first edition she stumbles across in a junk shop. Kelley, now dead, has become one of the year's publishing sensations with this dark but uplifting satire on what might have happened if the American Civil War had gone a different way entirely. It was him who coined the term 'woke' and despite the novel being over 50 years old it feels as relevant as ever, sitting alongside the likes of The Good Immigrant, Slay in Your Lane and Becoming. and…

Carrying this book around will not make you look smart: it will probably only attract bearded men men wielding copies of Pale Fire. But reading it - and its excellent introduction from Women's Prize winner Kamila Shamsie - will certainly leave you smarter than you started. A bijou collection of Orwell's writing, specifically the passages on freedom, it is a perfect starting point for anyone who has never really known where to start with his work. There are extracts from novels, snippets from his non fiction, an easily accessible theme and a jacket which is pretty damn smart too.

The memoir of the year, this is the story of Westover's extraordinary story of being raised by radical survivalist Mormons in rural Idaho and escaping to seek an education. She went on to complete a PHD at Cambridge - despite never having set foot in a classroom until she was 17. In an age where experts are seen as stuffy bores and the midwest seems to perplex so many in the US, this is a fascinating insight into how some people can reject the truth, some will seek it at all costs, and how family dynamics can be the most perplexing of all. Riveting.

The memoir of the year, this is the story of Westover's extraordinary story of being raised by radical survivalist Mormons in rural Idaho and escaping to seek an education. She went on to complete a PHD at Cambridge - despite never having set foot in a classroom until she was 17. In an age where experts are seen as stuffy bores and the midwest seems to perplex so many in the US, this is a fascinating insight into how some people can reject the truth, some will seek it at all costs, and how family dynamics can be the most perplexing of all. Riveting.

Selling almost nine copies per second on its first day on sale, BECOMING is already one of the books of the moment. But it's about an awful lot more than merely looking smart: with wit, warmth and insight, this is memoir which not only tells a great story, but a beautifully written one too. It's clearly Obama's own voice, and while much of it covers politics, she is just as winning on being a wife, struggling with fertility and the trials of being a teenager. A lesser woman could have presented us with something awash with bitterness or self-aggrandisement but this is the very opposite.