Sentient constructs who didn’t ask to be born but now have to grapple with ethics, personhood, and the inconvenient need to fight monsters—both literal and systemic. A collection of books that explores the many shades of “otherness” in human lives through robotic ones.

Inspired (or Incensed, you decide which) by the Guardian's Top 100 Novels of all Time, my bookclub decided to do our OWN top 100 list! Collected via a Google Form, each member submitted their top 10 books of all-time. We didn't limit to just fiction, and did accept entire series as "one book" — because honestly, picking is hard! As I can't order these by vote count, this is just all of them with no particular order whatsoever. Who knows, maybe we'll do this again sometime — enjoy!

Now in its 33rd year, Swindon's Festival of Literature is — perhaps surprisingly to those who know Swindon — a genuinely brilliant annual event that brings authors to the town to give talks, presentations and Q&As to local audiences. This list collects all the books that featured this year. It's the sort of thing that regularly introduces me to books I'd never have found otherwise, so take a look and see what grabs you.