"You are likely to be made sad," palliative medicine expert Kathryn Mannix warns us near the start of the Sunday Times bestseller With the End in Mind her wise and brilliant consideration of the process of dying. A mix of case studies and lessons drawn from her four decades of clinical practice, it was shortlisted for the Wellcome Prize. But Mannix hopes "that you will also feel comforted and inspired. I hope you will be less afraid".

The first full biography, Vintage says, of the Modernist poet, visual artist and essayist. "A gorgeous addition to the growing interest in David Jones, lavishly illustrated with his dreamy engravings and watercolours," said the Sunday Times, which named it a book of the year pick.

A mother's memoir about her son's traumatic birth and ensuing developmental difficulties. "Intimate, sometimes heartbreaking and often funny, this letter of love is essential reading," said the Mail on Sunday.

A biography of Marie Duplessis, the woman who inspired Verdi's "La Traviata".

A memoir of how the author fled the Rwandan genocide with her sister as a child, searching for safety for years before being granted refugee status in the US at the age of 12. "Extraordinary," said the Guardian.

How the author sorted through her mother's house after her death, discovering how much she had hoarded. Cathy Rentzenbrink called this "excellent" in the Times.

The first biography of Lettice Knollys, the Countess of Leicester in the Elizabethan era, cousin to Elizabeth I, and possibly also Henry VIII's illegitimate granddaughter.

A biography of the great German writer, statesman and naturalist.

The author, a journalist who loses her job, embarks on a series of interviews of a sort she'd never done before, with everyone from the first person to be publicly fired from a FTSE-100 board, to a mother with an ill baby who still worried about being fat.

The novelist's memoir about the years when he found success as a writer, between 1976 and 1991.