British Academy Book Prize 2025 | Lucy Ash’s reading recommendations
Posted by Lucy Ash
Continuing our celebration of the British Academy Book Prize shortlist, Lucy Ash, author of The Baton and The Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin, recommends two inventive accounts of recent history and a fascinating historical novel.
Meet all of the shortlisted authors at the British Academy Book Prize shortlist event on Tuesday 21 October at 6 p.m. at the British Academy and online. Tickets are free, but booking is essential – find out more here.
Melting Point by Rachel Cockerell
I was mesmerised by this account of a group of Russian Jews sailing to the most unlikely of promised lands. The author was researching her great grandfather’s life when she discovered he led a 1907 expedition to Galveston in Texas. He felt an urgent need for an alternative to Palestine and that if the Jews couldn’t get the Holy Land they would make another land holy. Not only is this story tragically relevant today, it is also told in a groundbreaking way, piecing together diaries, letters and newspaper clippings to create an extraordinary non-fiction collage that reads like a novel.
The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet
Lyse Doucet’s The Finest Hotel in Kabul grabs you from the first page with the beautifully evocative description of her 1988 arrival in the ghostly lobby filled with dusty chandeliers. She interlaces the lives of Afghans who have worked at the Inter-Continental – from the 1960s to today – with the seismic upheavals unfolding around them. With warmth and wit, she profiles Hazrat, the veteran housekeeper; Abida, the hotel’s first female chef; and Malalai and Sadeq, young staff whose hopes for democracy were dashed by the Taliban’s return in 2021. A perfect guide to the recent history of the country dubbed ‘the graveyard of empires’.
Laurus by Yevgeny Vodolazkin, translated by Lisa C. Hayden
Yevgeny Vodolazkin’s Laurus provides a fascinating glimpse into 15th century Muscovy – a land of monasteries, medicine men and Holy Fools. The Ukrainian Russian author is an expert on medieval manuscripts, and he puts his knowledge to good use in this odyssey about a faith healer and prophet who ‘pelted demons with stones and conversed with angels’. I found it inspiring to read while researching my book on the Orthodox Church as it explores the way religious life gripped the imagination of everyone from princes to peasants. Warning: some parts are uncompromisingly violent and gory.
Lucy Ash is the author of The Baton and The Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin, published by Icon Books. See all the books on the British Academy Book Prize shortlist here.
