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It’s that time of the year where you’re thinking of either jetting off to somewhere sunny, taking the train down to Cornwall or lazing around in your back garden (provided it’s not raining). To compliment a well earned rest, many of us opt to take a book on our break. For some of us, this is the only time of year that we get the chance to settle down with a book and for this reason, we want it to be a good read. So, here, we have a collection of recommendations from award-winning authors on what you should be reading this summer (Amazon at the ready):
Jeffrey Archer who gave us the Clifton chronicles among other brilliant works, suggests you get stuck into I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh. “Kept me hooked from beginning to end, with not one, but two huge twists in it that will knock you for six.”
Author of About A Boy, Nick Hornby suggests picking up Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler. Hornby said: “Beautiful, funny, real, absorbing – Anne Tyler is the writer who made me want to write.”
Paula Hawkins, author of bestseller The Girl on the Train said, “You need a good mix of books on holiday. A romantic comedy, The Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin is perfect: warm, witty, drenched in California sunshine and twenty-something angst. In The Woods by Tana French because it’s dark and immersive, the perfect read for long journeys or bad weather. A classic: A Room with a View by EM Forster, the perfect travel companion to Florence or anywhere else in the world.”
Popular children’s author, Michael Morpurgo suggests that you re-read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens because it ‘gets better’ every time you read it. He also suggests A Week in September by R C Sheriff. “Nothing happens in this wonderful book excerpt ordinary things which makes it extraordinary.”
Mark Haddon, who wrote bestseller The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time, describes Victoria Moss’ Signs for Lost Children as one of the best books he enjoyed recently. But he thinks the classics are hard to beat: “If you are after a good read this summer and have not read Bleak House, Middlemarch, To the Lighthouse, or The Woman in White, then get yourself to a bookshop right now.”
Victoria Hislop, whose books The Sunrise and The Thread are amongst the public’s best loved, plumps for Dictator by Robert Harris to engross her on a trip away. Hislop said: “There is nothing better than sitting down with a book that is: page turning, brilliantly written, immaculately researched and a good story. Robert Harris always ticks every box.”
Will you be taking any of these suggestions away in your suitcase?
