Desert Island Books...as chosen by customers
By Green Heart Books
Desert Island Books...as chosen by customers
By Green Heart Books
Novelist Mike Gayle is our Reader-in-Residence, and has been offering book "prescriptions", discussing customers' Desert Island Books and talking about his own work.
His final event on February 10th Desert Island Books, will be an informal, lively chat about those books which mean most to us: a skip through all the books YOU wouldn't be without on a hypothetical desert island. Here's what you chose....
The Reader in Residency project for Bournville Hub and The Bookshop on the Green is organised in partnership with West Midlands Readers' Network. Tickets for Mike's Reader-in-Residence events at Bournville Hub are here: https://www.bournvillehub.com/whats-on
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4: Adrian Mole Book 1
Sue Townsend
£8.99 £8.54MIKE GAYLE'S DESERT ISLAND BOOK: How can one book be THAT funny and yet THAT truthful? A stone cold classic.
Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy
£5.99 £5.69MIKE GAYLE'S DESERT ISLAND BOOK: I first read this when I was 17 and I adored it and underlined so many passages in it that my highlighter pen ran out!
Naive. Super
Erlend Loe
£9.99 £9.49MIKE GAYLE'S DESERT ISLAND BOOK: I'm a big fan of books that appear to be about nothing but are really about people feeling lost.
HOLY BIBLE: King James Version (KJV) Black Presentation Edition
Collins Uk
£16.99 £16.14MIKE GAYLE'S DESERT ISLAND BOOK: There's a reason everyone on Desert Island Discs gets given a copy (along with the complete works of Shakespeare) and it's not just because it's long!
William Shakespeare: The Complete Works
William Shakespeare
£19.99 £18.99Desert Island dwellers get this one for free, but some asked considered it too vital to risk not having and requested it again. A world of humanity in one volume.
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: A Book-to-Table Classic
Jane Austen
£4.99 £4.74This classic (unsurprisingly!) scored 4 votes
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
J. K. Rowling
£8.99 £8.542 votes were cast for "Harry Potter". This is the first in the 7-part series.
Half a World Away: The heart-warming, heart-breaking Richard and Judy Book Club selection
Mike Gayle
£9.99 £9.49Mike Gayle's own novels scored a place on the list, including this one and "The Importance of Being Batchelor" which isn't on Bookshop.org. Sometimes characters just grab hold of you and demand to tell their story and this is certainly what happened here. Word of warning though. Bring tissues.
A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara
£10.99 £10.44Yanagihara's new novel "To Paradise" has had rapturious reviews. Will it make its way onto this list too?
Hamnet: WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020 - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER
Maggie O'Farrell
£9.99 £9.49
The Color Purple: Now a major motion picture from Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg
Alice Walker
£10.99 £10.44
Forbidden Flowers
Nancy Friday
£10.99 £10.44This customer really wanted Nancy Friday's "My Secret Garden" - a compliation of women's fantasies, but it's not in stock at Bookshop.org, so we've plumped for this one.
Voss
Patrick White
£10.99 £10.44A novel set in 19th century Australia about (a lot of) suffering, love, ego and redemption.
A Confederacy of Dunces: ‘Probably my favourite book of all time’ Billy Connolly
John Kennedy Toole
£9.99 £9.49
The Rosie Effect: The hilarious and uplifting romantic comedy from the million-copy bestselling series
Graeme Simsion
£10.99 £10.44
The Unbearable Lightness of Being: 'A dark and brilliant achievement' (Ian McEwan)
Milan Kundera
£9.99 £9.49
Vernon Subutex One: the International Booker-shortlisted cult novel
Virginie Despentes
£10.99 £10.44
The Witches
Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake
£7.99We're a nostalgic lot! Three Roald Dahl novels made it onto the list.
The Jewelled Moth
Katherine Woodfine
£7.99 £7.59These last 4 nominations came from a young customer. Great choices!
Some nominated books aren't currently available at Bookshop.org:
Manuscript Found in Acora by Paulo Coelho
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Give the Anarchist a Cigarette by Mick Farren