Cal Flyn (original) (raw)

Interviewer

Cal Flyn, Deputy Editor

Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn is a writer from the Highlands of Scotland.

Her latest book, Islands of Abandonment—about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places—is out now. It has been shortlisted for the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize, the Wainwright Prize for writing on global conservation, the British Academy Book Prize, and for the title of Scottish Nonfiction Book of the Year.

At Five Books, she interviews on subjects including literary fiction and nonfiction, psychology, nature, environment, and science fiction.

Interviews by Cal Flyn

Every year, judges for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize ferret out the very best in newly published comic fiction. This year, the seven-novel shortlist ranges from steampunk fantasy to romantic comedy—and they are, says judge Justin Albert, the funniest books of 2024.

The ‘Deep’ South is a complicated place with a complicated history. But that’s what makes it such an effective literary setting, says Xan Brooks—author of The Catchers, a story of Blues music and exploitation that unfolds in the Mississippi Delta. Here he recommends some of the best historical fiction set in the American South, including novels by Flannery O’Connor and Mark Twain.

The interplay of real life and the generation or dissemination of ideas serves as the fascinating focus of the intellectual biography. Here, Henry Oliver—author of Second Act, a compelling new book about late-blooming intellectuals, artists, and thinkers—selects five of the best intellectual biographies, including studies of the lives of the novelist George Eliot and the philosopher Derek Parfit.

Every year, the judges of the Royal Society Science Book Prize put together a shortlist of the smartest, sharpest, funniest science books of the previous twelve months. We asked the chair of the 2024 panel—the leading evolutionary biomechanics researcher Professor John Hutchinson—to talk us through their picks of the best new popular science books.

Biographers create character studies of fascinating people, through which we might insight into the historical context and the systems these individuals functioned within. Here, journalist and attorney William Cooper recommends five U.S. political biographies and memoirs that allow readers special access to the rooms where American decision-making takes place.

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a watershed moment in the history of the United States—and, as a result, has made an enormous impact on American literature, explains Craig A. Warren, author of Scars to Prove It: The Civil War Soldier and American Fiction. Here, he recommends five key texts: classic novels of the American Civil War that, together, offer a panoramic view of a country in crisis.

The Western evolved out of colonial adventure narratives that dramatised a battle between so-called ‘savagery’ and ‘civilisation’; dime novels then turned the cowboy into an iconic symbol of masculinity—explains Susan Kollin, professor of American studies at Montana State University. But this antique genre has plenty of literary potential and moral uncertainty to offer to the modern reader. Here, she selects five landmark Western novels that explore frontier mythology.

Mountaineering is a thrilling, mind-altering pastime that brings the climber into direct contact with some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes. But it is also one that carries significant risk, explains Anna Fleming, author of the rock-climbing memoir Time on Rock. Here, she recommends five fascinating mountaineering books that combine history, nature, and sheer adventure.