Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee, Wi’ murdering pattle!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion Has broken Nature’s social union, An’ justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor, earth-born companion An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave ‘S a sma’ requet; I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave, An’ never miss’t!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! An’ naething, now, to big a new ane, O’ foggage green! An’ bleak December’s win’s ensuing, Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste, An’ weary Winter comin fast, An’ cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves and stibble, Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! Now thou’s turned out, for a’ thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble, An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But Och! I backward cast my e’e, On prospects drear! An’ forward, tho’ I cannot see, I guess an’ fear

Fall Out - Tim Shipman, on of his astonishingly detailed quartet on Britain's exit from the EU;

Robert Blake's biography of Disraeli, magisterial yet readable;

Boris Johnson's memoir Unleashed, great fun if you like his tone;

Colonialism, a Moral Reckoning, Nigel Biggar, an antidote to the more ahistorical versions of the BLM narrative.

The Notebook - A history of thinking on paper, Roland Allen - a joyful romp through the notebook's history;

Elusive - How Peter Higgs solved the mystery of Mass, Frank Close - a nice account of the discovery of the Higgs Boson, with perhaps too much biography of Higgs, who after all as a lecturer at Edinburgh was not a thrill-seeker.

Carlo Rovelli's White Holes, implausible but beautifully written.

For the value of ‘best’ that includes

(a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and

(b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right,

here are some in no particular order:

The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke

Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein

(These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level)

The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler

The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse

A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh

Diaries, Samuel Pepys

Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer

A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor

The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester

The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope

Bevis, Richard Jeffries

The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith

The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse

Hitch-22, essays, Christopher Hitchens

Collected Essays, William Hazlitt

Venice, Martin Gayford

The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski

The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch

Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.

Hitch-22, essaysChristopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford

The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch

Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.