These are the books everyone should read at least once, according to the experts (Image: Getty)
When it comes to choosing your next read, it can be difficult. Whether you’re reading from your own collection, visiting your local library, or browsing through Kindle Unlimited, you may find yourself somewhat stuck for choice.
From fun-filled fiction to non-fiction self-help books, there’s certainly something out there for everyone, even if you aren’t a particularly voracious reader. With this in mind, I’ve asked a number of experts what books they believe everyone should read at least once. Their answers include a YA series based in a dystopian London, and a well-loved children’s book that’s less than 50 pages long.
Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
Speaking to express.co.uk, Joanna Reynolds, CEO of The Folio Society, recommended Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman, which has been reissued as one of the Folio Society’s beautiful special editions.
On Goodreads, the book is described as “a thought-provoking look at racism and prejudice in an alternate society,” and has a 4.16 star rating, with over 85,000 reviews.
Joanna said: “I pushed for Folio to publish this book. We live in south London and it had an enormous impact on my children and me when we read it. It made you sit back and see the world completely differently.
“Malorie Blackman is a hero and I used to go and sit in local venues listening to Benjamin Zephaniah when I first came to London. His introduction to the Folio book is amazing. Please read it.”
Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses was adapted into a TV series back in 2020 (Image: Getty)
Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Kate Wilson, CEO and co-founder of independent children’s publisher Nosy Crow, looked towards children’s books for her answer, recommending Maurice Sendak’s beloved Where The Wild Things Are.
She said: “I’d say the book every child and parent should read is Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. It’s a celebration of the way that children are wild and untameable and utterly themselves.
“And that, however wild and untameable and utterly themselves they are, and however much they drive their parents mad, their parents will always love them and look after them: when the child comes home after their adventures, their supper is waiting for them, ‘and it was still hot.’
Kate Wilson says everyone, adults and children alike, should read Where The Whild Things Are (Image: Getty)
The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
Sharing his choice, Mark Thornton, senior partnership manager at Bookshop.org, says: “My one book is The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton.
“It was first published in the year 2000, and there is something of the turn-of-the-Millennium optimism about it, but in hindsight it was a prepper manual for darker times ahead. The philosophy boom started here as far as I am concerned, but this little miracle of a book remains a perfectly formed, eminently readable introduction to a range of philosophies.
“It serves as a gateway to philosophy and a workable handbook in its own right. At a time when stoicism, the darling of the tech elite (which – conveniently for them – tells you to ‘suck it up’) dominates the philosophy bestsellers, de Botton’s special genius is to present different philosophies as a set of tools to approach the modern challenges of the world – challenges as familiar to Montaigne and Socrates as to us.”
