From the broadcasting event of the decade comes one of the books of the year. A History of the World in 100 Objects, a extraordinary collaboration between the BBC and the British Museum, wowed Radio 4 audiences for most of this year, tracing humanity’s story from two million years ago to the modern era through the technologies we have developed and the things we have deemed precious. What made the series so special was not the concept (though it was innovative enough) but the curatorial brilliance brought to bear on the project. Each object prompted a much wider meditation on humankind’s endeavours, and yet was still compressed into 100 15-minute segments. Nor was it a history of the world from a British or European perspective: Ancient Greece got just one object, and the series’s creator and narrator Neil MacGregor said that he set out to produce a series that would not ascribe the Mediterranean its titular significance. Korean roof tiles stood alongside painting of Mughal princes and the globe was spun with bewildering abandon at each episode.

The book is more-or-less the transcripts of the broadcasts (though, for baffling copyright restrictions, without many of the third party contributions), and adorned with high quality prints of the things in question. So it’s also quite an beautiful object in itself.