Cupboard Love: A Food Romance by Laura Lockington
Book Guild, £9.99 Buy the book

Proust's madeleine, dunked in a cup of tisane, inspired him to write “A la recherche du temps perdu”. A bone china cup of Thunder Tea (strong Assam tea improved with a slug of malt whisky) inspires Laura Lockington, a foodie of fierce appetites, to remembrance of a Christmas when she drove a young cousin to nightmares and bed wetting. A recipe dear to her heart heads each of 19 episodes from a career devoted to food, drink and, generally, immoderate behaviour recollected less in tranquillity than in a headlong dash through a flavoursome, zestful, highly-seasoned life.

Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet by Ian F. McNeely with Lisa Wolverton
Norton, £15.99 Buy the book

No matter in what form knowledge is recorded, the trick is to organise it in a form accessible to scholars and other end users. The next trick is to identify those who collect and transmit knowledge: in effect, who owns and uses it for what purposes. Knowledge acquired and made available then creates, or at least directs, the common culture. The internet cyber-culture is as revolutionary in society as the first forms of writing and printing technology. Parallels with the past are sharply drawn in this entertaining narrative of the development of Western knowledge.

Since Records Began: The Highs and Lows of Britain's Weather by Paul Simons
Collins, £9.99 Buy the book

The surprising thing about British weather is that it still catches us by surprise: floods, droughts, hurricanes, snow at Easter, a sunny summer - unprecedented, say the media. Well, no, says Paul Simons, who contributes a weather column to The Times; precedents are preserved in records dating back to 1659. In random snapshots of historical freaks of weather, Simons briefly discusses the cultural effects and political fallout of climate.

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