Over the past year or so I’ve been reviewing history books for the New Zealand Listener. Safe to say, 2025 has been a great year for non-fiction history books which, while meticulously researched and written by stellar historians, have stopped taking themselves too seriously and make for compelling, accessible reads. Gone are the days of dull dates and boring battles!

Plus there are two pictured below that I haven’t reviewed but which are my top history fiction reads of the year. Philippa Gregory’s portrayal of Jane Boleyn in Boleyn Traitor is surely the nearest any novel or TV series has come to understanding what the real Jane may have been like. Let’s have no more of that jealous, scheming harridan! (Male historians, eh?) And Alice Winn’s In Memoriam … what can I say? I haven’t been this moved by a book in a long time. Published in 2023, it’s a must-read, but have tissues to hand.

Click on the first six non-fiction titles below to read my reviews. In the New Year I’ll be reviewing The Eagle and Hart, which I’ve almost finished reading and is yet another read of the year.

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