"I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them."

Emma Thompson

The Reading List 2023

Small Pleasures

Never before had she considered that all these experiences that had nearly demolished her had built her into something better

Clare Chambers

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany’s, then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name

Truman Capote

Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Within the castle the Wolf Queen was free, vibrant and full of life.

Mizuki Tsujimura

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Evelyn Hugo is one of the biggest movie stars of all time. She doesn’t even have to have something to say for people to listen

Taylor Jenkins Reid

Twisted Games

To her becoming queen wasn’t a dream; it was her worst nightmare

Ana Huang

The Haunted Hotel

sir, what am I - a demon who has seen the avenging angel? or only a poor mad woman, misled by the delusion of a deranged mind?

Wilkie Collins

Twisted Hate

You’re one of the few people I trust...even when we couldn’t stand each other, I could always count on you to be honest with me

Ana Huang

Five Little Pigs

The accepted version of certain facts is not necessarily the true one

Agatha Christie

Loves Labour’s Lost

Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love

William Shakespeare

Twisted Lies

If my thoughts were chaos, she was my anchor. They always went back to her

Ana Huang

The American Roommate Experiment

You deserve so much better. Whether it’s an experiment or not, you deserve more.

Elena Armas

The Peony Pavillion

I have sought you everywhere,
And at last I find you here

Tang Xianzu

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present doesn't change

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The Unfriend

“But how do you put it? There’s no etiquette for this - there’s no thing people always say in these circumstances. ‘please don’t come to our house, we think you’re a murderer”

Stephen Moffat

Three Letters from the Andes

Safe in the mess-tent the beginners listened wide-eyed to tales of thunderstorms in the high arêtes where the electricity makes one’s hair stand literally on end and the ice-axe hisses in one’s grasp like a snake…

Patrick Leigh Fermor

Book Lovers

“Nora” He just barely smiles. “You’re in books. Of course, you don’t have a life. None of us do. There’s always something too good to read”

Emily Henry

Prima Facie

‘Every winner might be the one who loses the next day’

Suzie Miller

They Came to Baghdad

You seem to be a sensible young woman and I don’t suppose you’ve thought much about world politics which is just as well, because as Hamlet very wisely remarked, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so

Agatha Christie

I’m Glad My Mom Died

“A little girl shouldn’t have to worry about her entire family”

Jeannette McCurdy

The Love Hypothesis

“You ooze moodiness”

“I do not”. he sounded indignant, which struck her as oddly endearing

Ali Hazelwood

A Court of Thorns and Roses

“I threw myself into that fire, threw myself into it, into him, and let myself burn”

Sarah J. Maas

Love on the Brain

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a community of women trying to mind their own business must be in want of a random man’s opinion

Ali Hazelwood

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

What are lies but attempts to conceal some sort of weakness?

Suzanne Collins

The Changeling

She that in life and love refuses me,
In death and shame my partner she shall be

Thomas Middleton/ William Rowley

Love, Theoretically

Have you considered that maybe you’re already the way I want you to be? That maybe there are no signals because nothing needs to be changed

Ali Hazelwood

Haunting Adeline

When you make someone fall in love with the darkest parts of you, there’s nothing you can do that will scare them away. They will be yours forever because they already love all the fucked up bits and pieces of you

H. D Carlton

Hunting Adeline

I don’t care if I need to set this world on fire until there’s no one left but you and me. The world will burn around us, and I’ll gladly live in chaos with you as long as the only person that is a danger to you is me.

H. D Carlton

Red, White and Royal Blue

Thinking about history makes me wonder how I’ll fit into it one day, I guess. And you too. I kinda wish people still wrote like that. History, huh? Bet we could make some

Casey McQuiston

Mansfield Park

Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions

Jane Austen

Bonded by Thorns

A mate bond is very rare and sacred. It’s said to be the calling out of your soul for another; the melding of hearts; the quintessence of life itself

Elizabeth Helen

How to be a Renaissance Woman

“It’s not surprising that there was no one way of being a woman in the Renaissance”

Jill Burke

Loathe to Love You

“Men were a mistake,” Sadie says. “Big mistake,” Hannah adds. “Huge.”

Ali Hazelwood

Hooked

“Just remember that whenever things feel bleak, all situations are temporary. It’s not your circumstance that determines your worth, it’s how you rise from the ashes after everything burns'“

Emily McIntire

Pied Piper

“Finally, he got up, feeling uncommonly well. It did not occur to him that this was because he had a job to do, for the first time in many month”s

Nevil Shute

The Fine Print

You’ll learn that the best rewards come with the biggest consequences. Because nothing that great is given for free

Lauren Asher