David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951 and has been a professional historian since 1973. His four-volume history of the City of London was published between 1994 and 2001, and more recently he has written Till Time’s Last Sand, a history of the Bank of England. His continuing history of post-war Britain, 'Tales of a New Jerusalem', has so far comprised Austerity Britain, Family Britain and Modernity Britain. His most recent three books have been Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket (with Stephen Fay); Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem (with Francis Green); and Shots in the Dark: A Diary of Saturday Dreams and Strange Times.

For me the best book this year was David Kynaston's glorious On the Cusp ... It’s rare to read anything so teeming with life - so many diverse voices offering their own glimpse of a world which, as Kynaston convincingly argues, was changing more dramatically than ever before or since. Many people have written about this period between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP, but few have given such a rich sense of living through it

David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951 and has been a professional historian since 1973. His four-volume history of the City of London was published between 1994 and 2001, and more recently he has written Till Time’s Last Sand, a history of the Bank of England. His continuing history of post-war Britain, 'Tales of a New Jerusalem', has so far comprised Austerity Britain, Family Britain and Modernity Britain. His most recent three books have been Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket (with Stephen Fay); Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem (with Francis Green); and Shots in the Dark: A Diary of Saturday Dreams and Strange Times.

For me the best book this year was David Kynaston's glorious On the Cusp ... It’s rare to read anything so teeming with life - so many diverse voices offering their own glimpse of a world which, as Kynaston convincingly argues, was changing more dramatically than ever before or since. Many people have written about this period between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP, but few have given such a rich sense of living through it

David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951 and has been a professional historian since 1973. His four-volume history of the City of London was published between 1994 and 2001, and more recently he has written Till Time’s Last Sand, a history of the Bank of England. His continuing history of post-war Britain, 'Tales of a New Jerusalem', has so far comprised Austerity Britain, Family Britain and Modernity Britain. His most recent three books have been Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket (with Stephen Fay); Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem (with Francis Green); and Shots in the Dark: A Diary of Saturday Dreams and Strange Times.

For me the best book this year was David Kynaston's glorious On the Cusp ... It’s rare to read anything so teeming with life - so many diverse voices offering their own glimpse of a world which, as Kynaston convincingly argues, was changing more dramatically than ever before or since. Many people have written about this period between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP, but few have given such a rich sense of living through it