Graham Farmelo is senior research fellow at the Science Museum, London. He is reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes (Faber and Faber, 2009) - a quintet of short stories. "For sheer pleasure, it's his best since Remains of the Day, and by far his funniest. Each story is deceptively simple, resonant, gentle but powerful."
Tim Hall is lecturer in human geography, University of Gloucestershire. He is reading Carolyn Nordstrom's Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World (University of California Press, 2007). "An anthropologist walks (literally) the pathways of the global economy. Economic geographers and economists should read this and contrast it with the more abstract accounts that prevail within their disciplines."
Peter Jan Honigsberg is professor of law, University of San Francisco. "I am reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Vintage, 2006). In simple prose, McCarthy tells the gripping story of the unwavering bond between father and son in one of the most frightening cautionary tales imaginable."
Katharine Reeve is senior lecturer in publishing, School of English and Creative Studies, Bath Spa University. She is reading Geoff Andrews' The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure (Pluto, 2008) - "a serious interrogation by an Italian politics expert of the cultural and political ideals, and the significance, of this 'real' food movement".
Raphael Salkie is professor of language studies, University of Brighton. He is reading Richard J. Goldstone and Adam M. Smith's International Judicial Institutions: The Architecture of International Justice at Home and Abroad (Routledge, 2009). "I started as a sceptic: what use is the International Criminal Court if it can't indict Henry Kissinger, the butcher of Cambodia? On the other hand, each time any revolting mass murderer is put behind bars it must be an occasion for rejoicing and a warning to others. Slowly and painfully, we are inching towards a civilised world: this book shows us some of the steps on the way."