Whether you're gifting a novel to the bookworm in your life or looking forward to some indulgent reading time this Christmas, 2019 has been an excellent year in publishing.

Facts not Fiction

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez
The world is designed for men, and that's bad not just for women, it's bad for everyone. Meticulously researched, this is both a staggering expose of design prejudice and an impassioned call to action.
Chatto & Windus, £16.99

The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells
The New York magazine climate columnist explores the problems we'll face if climate change continues, from food shortages to refugee emergencies. A terrifying read emphasising that the responsibility rests on the current generation.
Penguin, £9.99

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
This fascinating social history is the first book dedicated to the women at the centre of Britain's most notorious unsolved crimes, rather than their murderer, and counters many long-held inaccuracies.
Doubleday, £16.99

The Hotly-anticipated Sequel

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Thirty-three years after dystopian classic, The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood returns to the Republic of Gilead. Rather than continue Ofred's story it follows the accounts of three very different women, including formidable Aunt Lydia.
Chatto & Windus, £20

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
Big Sky welcomes not just the return of PI Jackson Brodie but also Reggie Chase, now a young police officer. Atkinson's pacy, multi-perspective crime novel tackles both historic abuse and modern day trafficking.
Doubleday, £20

Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan
Nothing breeds anticipation like finishing a book on a cliffhanger. This middle offering in the Girls of Paper and Fire trilogy takes readers into the bigger world of Ikhara as Lei and Wren look for support from far flung rebel clans.
Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99

Mighty Memoir

Gotta Get Theroux This: My Life and Strange Times on Television by Louis Theroux
He's made documentaries on polyamorous relationships and extreme plastic surgery, now the master interrogator turns the focus on himself. Theroux offers insight into his personal life, his interviewees and Jimmy Savile.
Pan MacMillian, £20

Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen by Amrou Al-Kadhi
Al-Kadhi is the founder of drag troupe Denim, and performs as Glamrou. This emotional memoir charts their journey from an upbringing in a strict Iraqi Muslim household to a Eton scholarship and becoming a fearless drag queen.
Fourth Estate, £16.99

Lowborn by Kerry Hudson
Prize-winning novelist Kerry Hudson grew up in grinding poverty, always on the move. In Lowborn she returns to the hometowns of her childhood in a frank look at what it means to live in poverty in Britain then and now.
Chatto & Windus, £14.99

Who Dunnit?

A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott
When a body is discovered killed in the manner of traitors to the Resistance in WWII police inspector Picaut looks to 1940s France for answers. This gripping thriller won the 2019 McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish Crime book.
Corgi, £8.99

Conviction by Denise Mina
Denise Mina taps into the trend for true-crime podcasts in her latest novel. When Anna McDonald realises she knew one of the victims in popular podcast Death and the Dana she decides to try and solve it herself.
Harvill Secker, £14.99

Worst Case Scenario by Helen Fitzgerald
In this psychological thriller from the author of The Cry a man imprisoned for murdering his wife is released into the care of forthright probation officer Mary Shields, who develops a dangerous obsession with the poster boy for Men's Rights activists.
Orenda Books, £8.99