As the days get colder, darker and shorter, many of us will be curled up on the sofa catching up on Netflix or with a good book. Here are our top finds to help you with your next book club, Christmas shopping or to write your reading goals for 2021.

1. Women Don't Owe You Pretty by Florence Given

Women Don’t Owe You Pretty is an accessible entry point into progressive feminist discussion, covering topics such as body image, toxic beauty standards, and identity-building in a world still plagued by misogyny and sexism.

2. The Art of Rest: How to Find Respite in the Modern Age by Claudia Hammond.

Drawing on a ground-breaking global study of rest, as distinct from sleep, Hammond's practical and inspiring book unravels the transformative benefits of quality downtime and the secrets of how to unwind.

3. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Laced with killer one-liners and artfully constructed twists, the debut novel from the telly puzzle favourite centres on a posse of pensionable Poirots investigating the suspicious demise of a property developer.

4. Gender Swapped Fairy Tales by Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett.

Often the simplest changes can prove the most revelatory, and so it proves with Fransman and Plackett’s revision of classic fairy tales where the genders of all the protagonists are swapped to reveal a completely new way of looking at traditional stories.

5. Love your Life by Sophie Kinsella

Sophie Kinsella hits the mark again with a charming Mediterranean-set comedy of whirlwind holiday romance and everyday incompatibility.

6. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years. Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.

7. Cook, Eat, Repeat by Nigella Lawson

Cook, eat, repeat is a delicious and delightful combination of recipes intertwined with narrative essays about food, all written in Nigella’s engaging and insightful prose. Whether asking 'What is a Recipe?' or declaring 'Death to the Guilty Pleasure', Nigella’s wisdom about food and life comes to the fore, with tasty new recipes that readers will want to return to again and again.

8. A Year at the Chateau by Dick and Angel Strawbridge

Sharing their full journey for the first time, A Year at the Chateau follows Dick and Angel from when they first moved to France in the depths of winter and found bedrooms infested with flies, turrets inhabited by bats, the wind rattling through cracked windows, and just one working toilet, which flushed into the moat, through to the monumental efforts that went into readying the chateau for their unforgettable wedding and their incredibly special first Christmas.

9. My Garden World by Monty Don

My Garden World by Monty Don is a celebration of every living creature that we all share. This year has given us the enforced opportunity to learn more about the fascinating natural world around us. Whether you live in the countryside or the town, Monty’s observations and insights are relevant to each and every one of us. My Garden World is Monty Don’s personal journey through the natural year, month by month, season by season, observed from the immediate world around him.

10. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

A remarkable debut bubbles over with the melting-pot tension of a community beset by tragedy and shaped by the landscape that surrounds it. Character-driven, with an impeccable sense of place and time, this is a richly imagined story of innocence undone and of a small town torn and re-shaped by crisis.