The South, by Tash Aw
Lovers of quiet, detailed – dare I say, Proustian – novels will find plenty to get their teeth into in the first part of this planned quartet. Set in rural Malaysia in the 1990s, it centres around the relationship of two teenage boys from different backgrounds, as they navigate their way through a rapidly modernising society.
Theft, by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Set in Zanzibar, this makes for an interesting comparison with Tash Aw’s South, also on this list. Another coming-of-age novel set in the 1990s in a country adjusting to the twin problems of a colonised past and rapid modernisation, Theft explores class, friendship and trust in a satisfying novel that centres around a shattering false accusation.
Question 7, by Richard Flanagan
The title of this difficult-to-categorise book comes from a Chekhov short story and is used by Flanagan as the entry point for exploring big questions about the meaning of life. For a reader, much of its appeal lies in how he skilfully draws together disparate strands, linking his father’s life to the history of the atomic bomb to H.G. Wells (the inventor of the bomb, wouldn’t you know!) to his own life and brush with mortality, along with much more.
Knowledge and Knowing in Media and Film Studies, by Steve Connolly
If you're a media or film teacher who cares not just about how to teach, but also why and what for, this book is essential reading. In this open access book, Steve Connolly asks what it means to ‘know’ something in media and film studies and whether some types of knowledge are deemed more 'legitimate' than others. Drawing from personal experience, philosophy and educational theory (notably Michael Young’s idea of ‘powerful knowledge’), the book positions media education as an intellectually rigorous field that's not so much about the texts we study but the questions that we ask about them.
I Hope This Finds You Well, by Natalie Sue
This is a fun page-turner! Barely able to tolerate the inanities of office politics, let alone engage with her co-workers, Jolene gets through the day by adding truthful codas to her emails – turning the text white before pressing send. Until she forgets. When the monitoring software installed on her computer inadvertently gives her access to all their emails and messages, she finds herself with way too much into insight into their private lives. One for fans of Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning, by Alison Binney
Alison Binney is an English teacher, PGCE tutor at Cambridge and a stunningly good poet. This debut collection explores a range of themes with humour, tenderness and honesty – whether her father’s Alzheimer’s, adolescence, coming out, or teaching.
You're All Talk, by Rob Drummond
EMC friend and collaborator Rob Drummond's first popular linguistics book is out in paperback and it's a fun, informative read for anyone with a passing interest in accent, identity and why common sense views about language are often misguided.
The Original, by Nell Stevens
Grace is a copyist, one of a band of 19th century painters replicating the grand masters and passing them off as original. Yet, while she has the perfect eye for memorising art, she cannot remember faces, which causes her all kinds of problems when a man claiming to be her cousin Charles returns home after being presumed dead for more than a decade. Set in the late 19th century, this is a tightly plotted novel for lovers of Sarah Waters, exploring themes relevant to our current age – truth, identity and sexuality.
The Colony, by Audrey Magee
Ireland, the Troubles, happenings on a small island, linguistic imperialism, art and love all feature in this richly evoked novel. A potent combination! Worth reading for the beautiful evocation of the island alone but much more than that too.
The Land in Winter, by Andrew Miller
This is a novel to sink into – set during the harsh winter of 1962-63, it tells the story of two marriages, their secrets, hopes and tensions, set against a profoundly changing society of post-war Britain.
The City Changes its Face, by Eimear McBride
Eimear McBride's prose style is extraordinary. Fragmented, elliptical, and intensely interior she breaks conventional grammar rules in a way that reflects the messy, unfiltered experience of thought and emotion. It's such a pleasure to read.
In this novel she revisits two characters from her an earlier book, The Lesser Bohemians, Eily and her much older partner Stephen. When Stephen is reunited with his 19-year-old daughter (only a year younger than Eily) dark memories from both their pasts resurface, threatening to destroy their relationship. If you've never read McBride though, start with her devastating debut, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing.
River East, River West, by Aube Rey Lescure
As the title suggests, this is a book full of dualities and finding oneself caught between them. One narrative and timeline gives us the point of view of Alva (a mixed-race teenager who has never known her Chinese father) in 2007 – the book's present. The other gives us the perspective of Lu Fang (the Chinese landlord her ex-pat American mother wants to marry) in the past – starting in 1985. Lescure's descriptions are incredibly vivid giving a nuanced picture of Shanghai against the backdrop of China's economic transformation. I enjoyed the way she sprinkles in (often untranslated) Chinese characters. Just to warn you though – there are many, many supremely uncomfortable moments and none of the characters are very likeable.
The Café with No Name, by Robert Seethaler
A novel whose plain simplicity is its appeal and power. Robert Simon, odd job man at the market in Vienna, takes the lease on a cafe and spends his life serving the customers who make it their local and whose hopes, disappointments, loves (and failures in love) we readers become immersed in.
Perfection, by Vincenzo Latronico
This odd, sparse novella begins by describing a series of images on a Berlin air bnb listing. A monstera plant, mid-century Danish furniture, an LP collection including a limited edition ‘In Rainbows’ – it sounds amazing, definitely somewhere I would aspire to live. The flat belongs to freelance millennial graphic designers Anna and Tom (always referred to as "Anna and Tom") an 'every couple' for the social media age. Latronico describes their habits, routines, worries and dissatisfactions in a detached clinical style that exposes the hollowness of millennial lifestyle aspiration.
The Rest of Our Lives, by Benjamin Markovits
Tom Lanyward drives his daughter to university, drops her off and keeps on driving, reflecting as he does on his life and its meaning (or lack of it), his wife's affair 12 years previously and the fact he is on enforced leave from his lecturing job (a fact yet to be shared with his wife). An understated, readable road trip novel which explores plenty of contemporary issues, but in such a light-touch way it never distracts from the storytelling.
Come and Get it, by Kiley Reid
A campus novel in which the nuances of identity, identity politics and privilege are brought to life in an absorbing story.
Red Pill, by Hari Kunzru
Set against the backdrop of the rise of the alt-right, Red Pill paints a dark and paranoia-inducing picture of a man struggling to make sense of a changing world. It's not the most cheerful summer read, but it grapples with the dark undercurrents of contemporary politics.
Here One Moment, by Lianne Moriarty
Australian writer Moriarty is queen of the hook. In this case an elderly woman gets out of her seat on an internal flight and begins to walk down the aisle predicting the year and manner of each person’s death. The rest of the novel weaves between multiple characters as the plane’s passengers find their own ways to deal with the pronouncements and the woman herself looks back over her life. An intriguing but easy summer read. Listen on Audible for the Australian accents.
These Strange New Minds, by Christopher Summerfield
Summerfield is a computer scientist who can also give most top linguists a run for their money. This stands to reason when you realise that to develop Large Language Models such as ChatGPT, developers needed an intimate knowledge of how language works. That’s what makes this book a must-read for English teachers in the age of generative AI. Treading a careful line between the potential and pitfalls of the technology, Summerfield focuses on its relationship with language and how it can produce coherent, meaningful text in moments.
Ripeness,by Sarah Moss
In 1960s Italy, 18-year-old Edith, on the cusp of a new student life at Oxford, arrives from her Peak District home to look after her pregnant ballerina sister and oversee the giving up of the baby. 50 years later she lives in Ireland, well-off, enjoying her comfortable life of yoga, coffees and a late love affair. The stories of young and old Edith, told in alternating chapters, the former in the first person, the latter in the third, both centring round the giving up of a baby and themes of belonging, cleverly show the ways in which we nurture and make compromises with both the lives we have lived and the values we live by.
Consider Yourself Kissed, by Jessica Stanley
In Consider Yourself Kissed Stanley gets to have her cake and eat it – as do the readers: for this is a knowing romance which both draws on and gently undercuts the tropes of the genre. With the ‘meet-cute’ efficiently (but enjoyably) dispatched in the first couple of chapters, we follow the couple over the next ten years of their relationship (with Brexit, multiple general elections and a pandemic thrown into the mix) with all its everyday stresses and strains. An easy read – which nonetheless explores a host of tricky contemporary questions.
The Wager, by David Grann
From the writer of Killers of the Flower Moon, The Wager is the gruesomely compelling tale of an 18th century secret naval mission which collapsed in shipwreck, alleged mutiny, and lots of scurvy. When two groups of survivors wash up in South America, so do two competing versions of the tragedy. The slow unfolding of the subsequent court martial back in England shows that official cover-ups are nothing new. Along the way we get a fascinating glimpse into the attitudes of the time and the lives of ordinary sailors.
Shattered, by Hanif Kureishi
On Boxing Day, 2022, Kureishi fell and broke his neck, becoming paralysed from the neck down. This memoir chronicles his first year as a quadriplegic. Its power lies in the anger the writer feels for what has happened to him. Devoid of platitudes about adversity leading to deeper understanding, instead Kureishi’s unconcealed rage, supplemented by dark humour and plenty of interesting biography, reveals the value and wonder of life.
Twist,by Colum McCann
Master-storyteller McCann brings drama and intensity to the world of underwater cables! John Conway is a legendary diver and cable repair engineer (with more than a passing nod to Kurtz from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness). His bravery and technical wizardry keep the global economy going. But mystery surrounds Conway – a mystery that Irish writer, Anthony Fennell, looks to solve as a way to reconnect his own troubled self to the world.
Nesting, by Roisin O’Donnell
O'Donnell's first novel tells the story of Ciara and her two girls in the aftermath of her decision – finally – to leave her coercive controlling husband. The dread, the creeping doubt, the despair are all powerfully evoked – but so too is the determination and resilience not only of Ciara and the other women cooped up in their emergency accommodation, but of the migrant workers in the same hotel struggling to find their place in Dublin. It's an unputdownable book – it's sometimes difficult to breathe reading it.
Clear, by Carys Davies
A minister is sent to a remote Scottish island to clear its last inhabitant, who is also the last speaker of that island’s language. Though neither understand each other, a tender relationship develops in a beautiful novel that explores the nature of language, identity, companionship and much more.
Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, by Alec Karakatsanis
As Western democracies become more authoritarian and plough budgets into security and what Karakatsanis calls the 'punishment bureaucracy' of prisons and the police, this book offers a critical analysis of how the police, politicians and the media cooperate to make us more scared and less safe. Essential reading.
Non-fiction: Is a River Alive?
Macfarlane’s latest applies his books title question to three wounded rivers – in Ecuador, India and Canada - threatened respectively from mining, extreme pollution and damming. Beautifully written as ever, this is Macfarlane with added environmental urgency.
Each chapter focuses on an aspect of life in a sparsely populated future world. While the chapters don’t follow sequentially and are often set thousands of years apart, over the course of the novel they join together to make sense of the whole. Using language as sparse as the population of the world described, this novel is surprisingly moving, endlessly inventive and narratively satisfying.
This came highly recommended and didn’t disappoint - a novel full of suspense, intrigue and human interest with a wonderful, hugely likeable protagonist. A book to restore one’s faith in humanity!
YA Novels
Interweaving stories around the (very temporary) kidnapping of a baby gradually come together until several mysteries are resolved. A great read with Lawrence’s trademarks: a cast of realistically flawed characters treated with compassion and empathy. KS3
Thrilling dystopian future in which the earth is populated by giant constructs, mechanical creatures driven by the combined willpower of their human crew. KS3
Tackles toxic masculinity with a dystopian, Handmaid’s Tale feel. KS4+
Set mostly in a Nigerian boarding school, this atmospheric and gripping book blends self-discovery, history and mythology.
Hazel Hill is Gonna Win This One
‘Me too’ themes explored in a way that’s suitable for tweens. Uses humour to tackle difficult issues. LGBTQ+
Intriguing ‘locked room’ mystery. Full of facts and codes to break – great for science loving kids who think fiction is not for them. Yr 7.
Graphic memoir. Pedro is born in America to Mexican parents. Exploration of life as a 2nd generation immigrant but also a gripping true story about his grandfather, told with humour.
The metaphor of a house runs through this graphic novel. What does it mean to feel at home in your own body? An exploration of gender identities which reached the Carnegie Illustration shortlist and won the Shadower’s Choice award. Pan Macmillan made a YouTube video with Theo Parish talking about how they got published which might be of interest to budding graphic novelists! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njMX7jteiVU
Arthurian tale but with female knights from the founder of the ‘Everyday Sexism’ website. Character and action driven elements are balanced well with slower, more thought-provoking elements. KS3
For reluctant readers: novels with a teen interest age but lower reading age.
This is the moving prequel to ‘Amir and George’, featured in EMC’s Iridescent Adolescent anthology, building up to and including the speech that forms the backbone of the original. A brilliant book that explores friendship, belonging and resilience in the face of devastating refugee experiences.
The Ash Tree Foundation runs an internet safety course promising to cure young people of ‘internet addiction’, but something more sinister is going on. An intriguing quick read.
Baljit dreams of football stardom while working in his parents’ chippy. Then he gets a trial for the Premiere League. This popular book now has a sequel: Game On. Hugely motivating for football-loving reluctant readers.
13-year-old Kyle and his eccentric grandfather hatch a plan to save the beck, a local stream, from developers. As ever, McGowan writes beautifully and is a master of plotting and character, while being highly readable even for struggling readers.
Former best mates Hamza and Kit have a job to do. Can they manage to work together to complete it against the odds and earn some big pocket money? Hilarious. Award winning author Simon James Green doesn’t disappoint.
One of Palmer’s WW2 books – reliably gripping and readable.
