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James Stevens Curl, joint author of The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture (2015), is reading Partners in Design: Alfred H. Barr Jr. and Philip Johnson (The Monacelli Press, 2015), edited by David A. Hanks. ¡°Barr and Johnson, through MoMA, promoted German Modernism in the US from 1929: this splendidly illustrated, fascinating book records how they disseminated it, not least through Johnson¡¯s championing of Mies van der Rohe and the Bauhaus (he was cooler about Le Corbusier, regarding his paradigmatic houses as ¡®quite uninhabitable¡¯). Proofreading is dire: Wiesenhoffseidlung is inexcusable by any standard.¡±

Paul Greatrix, registrar, University of Nottingham, is reading Laila Lalami¡¯s The Moor¡¯s Account (Periscope, 2015). ¡°A wonderful alternative history of the Spanish invasion of Florida in the 16th century in which Estebanico, a Moroccan slave, finds himself, along with four noblemen, as one of a handful of now-equal survivors travelling across the Americas and encountering many different tribes. When they are eventually reunited with the Spanish forces, the old hierarchies return, but Estebanico¡¯s account remains.¡±

Uwe Sch¨¹tte, reader in German at Aston University, is reading Gari M. Joubert¡¯s Uptown Saturday Night Downtown Sunday Morning (CreateSpace, 2015). ¡°In his enthralling first novel, Joubert evokes the atmosphere of 1980s subcultural Durban. The narrative follows the outsider protagonist James DuPont, evoked with what appears to be considerable autobiographical detail, on a roller-coaster ride through the alternative club and drug scene of South Africa under apartheid. Should you be in search of a boldly written novel to compensate for the daily chores of academic life, look no further.¡±

John Shand, associate lecturer in philosophy, the Open University, is rereading Martin Amis¡¯ Experience (Vintage, 2001). ¡°A masterpiece. Its autobiographical subject matter might seem too narrow to be of general interest, but just the opposite is the case. There is a generically valid wisdom that flows from its precision accounts of the particular. It easily reflects one¡¯s own life. The writing is superb, managing to be both incredibly moving (the chapter on his father Kingsley¡¯s final decline and fall) and funny.¡±

Robert Springborg, visiting professor in the department of war studies, King¡¯s College London, is reading Hazem Kandil¡¯s Inside the Brotherhood (Polity, 2015). ¡°It is rare for a book on a much written-over topic to break new ground. This is one of those rarities. Marshalling and superbly analysing a welter of evidence, including personal interactions with present and former Brothers, Kandil makes a persuasive case that this organisation ¨C authoritarian and intolerant of opposing views ¨C can best be understood as a cult, and a cult that was bound to fail when and if it exercised power.