Spectator Books of the Year: A death row dispatch

As events unfolded this year, it was reassuring to read superb non-fiction that celebrated expertise. Two stand out. Trials: On Death Row in Pakistan (Penguin, £16.99) tells how Isabel Buchanan, fresh from a law degree, applied her feeling and intelligence to apprentice in a jurisdiction which, by 2014, saw a person executed every day. Ed Yong’s magnificent revaluation of bacteriology, I Contain Multitudes (Penguin, £20), counsels humility for student doctors like me: modern medicine’s pathogens may be the future’s therapeutics.

And then there is Mark Greif’s Against Everything (Verso, £16.99), which — as its title suggests — matches brilliant critique with improbable optimism. His essays risk embarrassment to analyse the irritations of urban life — hipsters, foodies, gym-goers — so that we might see these characters in ourselves, and treat them with, if not more kindness, more interest.

From the lives of others elsewhere to the trillions of microbes inside us, all three books interrupt our unimaginative monologues, and prompt us to ask better questions.