If you liked Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time…

Bill Bryson: A Short History Of Nearly Everything
A Short History Of Nearly Everything was conceived by Bill Bryson while flying over the Pacific Ocean and realising that he was entirely ignorant of the processes that created the vast area of water beneath him. It dawned on him that, as he put it, he ‘didn’t know the first thing about the only planet he was ever going to live on’. The result is science presented in an informative and entertaining way which will fill the gaps left behind since school years.

George Steiner: Essays From The New Yorker
This anthology of 53 articles published between 1967-1997 displays Steiner’s famously dazzling mind as he covers topics from the history of chess to the literature of the Gulag. Steiner makes an ideal guide to the Dutch Renaissance, Kafka, Levi-Strauss and paganism as old, difficult areas are made compelling to all.