If you’re jetting off somewhere far afield or simply enjoying a quiet 5 minutes in the garden, find out what some of the UK’s bestselling authors recommend that’ll guarantee a page turner!
Paula Hawkins, David Nicholls, Michael Morpurgo, Jeffrey Archer, Nick Hornby, Mark Haddon and Victoria Hislop have revealed their top holiday reading recommendations to Oxfam.
Andrew Horton, Oxfam Trading Director said: “What better way to relax in the summer than reading a book? So it’s wonderful and stress-free to get recommendations from some of the most discerning writers in the UK. These brilliant authors know better than anyone what makes a really good read. We are so grateful for their suggestions, and to the British public who support Oxfam by donating and buying books. The money raised by Oxfam books saves and improves lives across the world.”
David Nicholls author of the phenomenally successful One Day, re-reads F Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night every year. Nicholls said: “It’s a melancholy bittersweet book. The story of this beautiful, doomed couple’s trip across Europe never fails to move me.”
Adored children’s author and playwright Michael Morpurgo, who wrote War Horse, goes for The Fortnight in September by RC Sheriff. Morpurgo said: “Nothing happens in this wonderful book, except ordinary things which make it extraordinary.”
Mark Haddon chose 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.”
Nick Hornby who gave the world High Fidelity and About a Boy, suggests getting stuck into 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.”
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.”
That Kind Worth of Killing, by Peter Swanson, is one of the books that makes it into Jeffrey Archer’s suitcase. Jeffrey, who has written a small library’s worth of bestsellers said, “It’s a thriller that demands you turn the page because of its unexpected twists and turns.”
Gripping books like these can be found alongside countless other summer reads in Oxfam shops up and down the UK, as well as the Oxfam Online Shop. The shops are places to find current bestsellers and classics, children’s favourites and poems, hobby manuals, travel titles, rare first editions and treasures hundreds of years old. Crucially sales of these books raise vital funds for Oxfam’s work fighting extreme poverty across the world.
