Andrew Ross Sorkin, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History. It might seem strange to describe a blow-by-blow account of a financial crash as gripping, especially when it happened a hundred years ago, but 1929 genuinely is. Sorkin’s blend of character study, geopolitical history and economic clarity, which will be familiar to readers of his book on the 2008 crash, work magnificently on its illustrious predecessor.

Rebecca Kuang, Katabasis. A weird, funny, provocative, fascinating and theologically thought-provoking novel about hell, rivalry and academia, which you can read more about in my column for Christianity Today.

Mike Bird, The Land Trap: A New History of the World’s Oldest Asset. Our financial system is built on the value (or not) of land. It always has been. But this is both paradoxical (because the value of land is not innate, but depends on what happens around it), and problematic (as demonstrated by all sorts of case studies in the ancient and modern worlds). Mike Bird - the Economist‘s Wall Street editor, not the Australian theologian - tells a fascinating story extremely well.

Karen Hao, Empire of AI: Inside the Reckless Race for Total Domination. A contender for book of the year. Karen Hao tells three stories in one: the technological journey of so-called Artificial “Intelligence” (which she does a great job of challenging), the moral, ethical and political challenges it presents (including its impact on the environment and on those in poorer nations), and the inside story of OpenAI, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and a remarkable supporting cast. Thought-provoking, arresting, and often wise.

Antonia Senior, Stalin’s Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire. I defy anyone not to be interested in the tale of the Cambridge spies, who sold secrets to Stalin’s USSR in the thirties, forties and fifties. But Antonia Senior’s colourful and pacy narrative makes it even more interesting than it usually is: tragic, funny, astonishing, other-worldly and yet somehow familiar. Marvellous.

You may notice that none of these are Christian books; that is mostly a reflection of the fact that I read lots of Christian books throughout the year. But if you are looking for a specifically Christian title this summer, you might want to look out for a new book called Happiness: What it is, How to Find it, and How to Make it Last Forever ...