A new pick from our subscribers' submissions

Every week we identify the best-written works of fiction, speculative fiction, and nonfiction from recent releases and shortlists for major prizes, and from our subscribers’ submissions. We also publish articles by their authors on prose technique and AI writing, while on the last Friday of the month we publish for paid subscribers the best-written book of the month.

Pick 1. Recently published nonfiction»

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice * ‘Sparkling, addictive reading’—MAGGIE O’FARRELL * ‘An unforgettable literary biographical tour de force’—INDEPENDENT

To a sophisticated Italian who traveled to England in the late sixteenth century, the island might not have appeared, as it had to the ancient Roman poet Virgil, “wholly separated from all the world.” But it would certainly have seemed bleak. To be sure, in London the visitor would have seen many signs of wealth and power: the sprawling royal residence of Whitehall; grand dwellings along the Thames for the leading aristocrats and their entourages; the magnificent abbey at Westminster housing the royal tombs; in the busy commercial center paved streets, some of them graced with beautiful fountains; a brooding fortress, said to have been built by Julius Caesar and used in the sixteenth century as a prison, a mint, an armory, and the site of a royal menagerie. But there was much else that would have given a foreign visitor pause.

The weather was a trial. England, along with much of northern Europe, found itself in the midst of what is now termed the Little Ice Age, with bitter cold winters and fierce storms that destroyed crops and caused periodic famine. The roads were terrible, and after dark they were the haunts of robbers. In London the most popular entertainments were animal fights. Large crowds paid to see a horse with a monkey on its back attacked by fierce dogs. The poor beleaguered horse would gallop and kick; the monkey would scream; the audience would roar. When the exhausted horse collapsed and was killed, it would be time to bring out the bears and bulls, tie them to stakes, unleash the dogs, and repeat the fun. “This sport,” remarked a visitor from the Continent, “is not very pleasant to watch.” In the churches psalms were sung and Mass was celebrated not in the time-honored Latin but in plain English. The Reformation had left other, more tangible marks as well. “It is a pitiful