"When I was 10, my mother gave me Eve Curie’s biography of her mother, and Marie Curie’s story became for me the epitome of a life in science: its dedication, its delights, and its frustrations and travails. I still have my original copy— now autographed by the author."

"Here’s a novel of intimate emotion and historical sweep. It tells the twin stories of an Australian doctor’s melancholy love affair and his appalling experience as a war prisoner building the Burma Railway. Most potently, Flanagan makes use of his own father’s real-life biography in telling his story."

"It’s a combination of scientific biography and explanation of the physics, particularly relating to electricity. It’s just the best book of its kind I have ever read, and I just hugely enjoyed it. Couldn’t put it down. It was a fabulous human achievement. And neither of the writers is a physicist."

"A very well researched biography of Carbon and humanity that will help you appreciate everything from the Big Bang to the Industrial Revolution to Global Warming and make you want to help save the Earth. It’s easy to read and makes you gain so much knowledge that we will need for the New Age."

"The last book I actually bought was The Hip Hop Never Stops, a combined biography of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. I think combined biographies are the way forward, just get some random people together and splice their lives together. It’s a whole new publishing bonanza. Who would I combine biographies with? Probably Gigi Hadid."