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Harriet Dunbar-Morris, strategic adviser to the vice?chancellor, University of Bradford, is reading Patrick O¡¯Brian¡¯s The Far Side of the World (Harper, 2010). ¡°I am halfway through reading O¡¯Brian¡¯s Aubrey-Maturin series. Based on historical accounts of actual naval events, this book combines exciting battles with political intrigue and great characterisation. If you¡¯ve only seen the film Master and Commander, which is based on the first book, you really ought to read the series.¡±

Richard Joyner, emeritus professor of chemistry, Nottingham Trent University, is reading Letters of Gerald Finzi and Howard Ferguson (Boydell Press, 2001), edited by Howard Ferguson and Michael Hurd. ¡°Composers Gerald Finzi (born 1901) and Howard Ferguson (born 1908) exchanged correspondence from 1927 until Finzi¡¯s death in 1956. Their letters are rarely profound, but offer a lively picture of British musical life. Their period was dominated first by an ageing Elgar and then by a mature Vaughan Williams. The BBC and the Three Choirs Festival played significant roles throughout.¡±

Jane O¡¯Grady, visiting lecturer in philosophy of psychology, City University London, is reading Richard Bourke¡¯s Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke (Princeton University Press, 2015). ¡°This outstanding intellectual biography shows that the 18th-century Irish MP Edmund Burke can be appropriated by neither Right nor Left. Thanks to Bourke¡¯s meticulous and wide-ranging scholarship, what seem to be inconsistencies, such as condemning Warren Hastings¡¯ injustice in India but supporting the notion of empire, and supporting the American Revolution and deploring the French one, are shown to be part of Burke¡¯s nuanced, if time-bound, humanitarianism.¡±

Diana Rose, professor of user-led research, King¡¯s College London, is reading Peter Beresford¡¯s All Our Welfare: Towards Participatory Social Policy (Policy Press, 2016). ¡°This book does not duck the complexities of the history of the welfare state and its current forms. It interleaves formal analyses with personal testimony to great effect. A wonderful trip down memory lane for me! Beresford¡¯s proposed alternative ¨C where those receiving the range of collective services are final arbiters over the forms they take ¨C is well researched and refreshing.¡±

Peter J. Smith, reader in Renaissance literature, Nottingham Trent University, is reading Robert Louis Stevenson¡¯s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Penguin, 2012). ¡°This novella is more compelling than I expected. The narrative shifts ¨C letters, alternative points of view, confessional ¨C parallel the generic imbroglio of whodunnit, science fiction, gothic and sensation. London¡¯s pea-souper has rarely been so obviously deployed as a malevolent pathetic fallacy. The story¡¯s Halloween silliness barely masks a genuine anxiety regarding the fragmentation of human psychology that was about to be theorised in the work of Sigmund Freud.¡±