Mark Haddon, Zadie Smith Pick Summer's Best Reads
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- Mark Haddon recommends "Taiwan Travelogue" by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, this year's International Booker Prize winner, alongside three other shortlisted novels including Daniel Kehlmann's "The Director" about filmmaker WG Pabst
- Sarah Waters was "bowled over" by Siri Hustvedt's "Ghost Stories," a memoir of her life with Paul Auster written in the rawness of his death, and was gripped by all 900-plus pages of Patricia Highsmith's diaries edited by Anna von Planta
- Tessa Hadley celebrates Daniyal Mueenuddin's first novel "This Is Where the Serpent Lives," calling it a "richly layered study of class and power and culture in Pakistan" after years hoping for a follow-up to his debut collection "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders"
- Marian Keyes praises Louise O'Neill's "Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone?" and Lena Dunham's "Famesick" as "devastatingly honest" accounts of childhood stardom and fame's costs
- Zadie Smith calls Luke Kennard's "Black Bag" the "funniest and smartest novel I've read in a while" and lauds Margaret Busby's "Part of the Story" as a beautiful record of African diaspora literature
- Tahmima Anam recommends Namwali Serpell's "On Morrison" essays alongside the back catalogue and Natasha Walter's "Feminism for a World on Fire" as an "urgent call to arms" against misogyny and climate crisis
Why it matters: The list functions as an early summer reading barometer, channeling readers toward titles with prize momentum (four International Booker shortlisted novels) and a high-profile grief memoir arriving in the raw aftermath of Paul Auster's death. For lesser-known authors, endorsement from names like Zadie Smith and Marian Keyes offers the kind of discoverability that paid advertising cannot buy.
