In short
How to get back into reading books, why reading matters, and what to read now (critics vs readers lists, buzzy genres, and summer picks).
Guests (backgrounds)
Charlotte North Edge and David Shariatmadari are Guardian book editors; Rebecca Liu is an acting Saturday culture editor and a Booker Prize judge.
Key claims
Device time has displaced reading (40% of British adults haven’t read in a year; only one in five children reads daily). Reading restores “total immersion” and a more human, emotionally coloring day. Start small (10 minutes a day, like a “couch to 5k” for reading; keep a book with you; put your phone in a cupboard). Booker submissions show surrealism/spirituality/magic/ghosts; non-fiction can be “thriller-like” without sensationalizing.
Notable examples
Middlemarch (No.1 on Guardian critics list); Beloved (No.2); absence of Updike/Roth; readers’ No.1 is Lord of the Rings. Standouts: The Correspondent (Virginia Evans), The Things We Never Say (Elizabeth Strout), London Falling (Patrick Radden Keefe), Mind of My Own (Kathy Burke). Debut buzz: Yesteryear (Caro Claire Burke). Romanticy/BookTok surge; examples include A Compass Error (Sybil Bedford), The Lonely Londoners (Sam Selvon), Simple Passion (Annie Arnaud), Heart the Lover (Lily King), and Frieda McFadden’s The Housemaid.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Importance of Reading
0:57 to 2:38
Discussion on the decline of reading and its emotional benefits.
“It is officially the National Year of Reading.”
Getting Back Into Reading
2:38 to 4:00
Tips and methods to reignite the reading habit.
“Charlotte North Edge, David Sharamadari and Rebecca Liu, welcome to Today in Focus.”
Highlights from the Guardian's Best Novels List
4:00 to 6:00
Insights on notable absences and surprises in the novels list.
“Rebecca, you're actually a Booker Prize judge this year, which I assume means reading a lot of books.”
Reader Feedback on Critic Lists
6:00 to 8:00
Discussion on the public response to the Guardian's novel lists.
“Well, let's talk about some of that conversation, actually, because this list did draw a lot of attention.”
Buzzy Debuts and Notable Non-Fiction
8:00 to 10:40
Exploration of popular new books and their themes.
“The book itself is a series of letters written by a woman in her 70s kind of to all sorts of people.”
The Impact of Film on Literature
10:40 to 14:00
Discussion on how film adaptations influence literature and book sales.
“I think we may have had this conversation this year.”
Impact of Film Adaptations on Literature
14:00 to 15:48
Learn how Nolan's film and Emily Wilson's translation influenced sales of classic literature.
“is expected to be starring in that film at some point she's also in the Odyssey what impact has Nolan's film had on the book's world?”
The Rise of Romanticy on BookTok
15:48 to 17:49
Discover the emergence of Romanticy and its impact on the publishing world.
“I mean Rebecca I'm looking at you because I think it's hot on BookTok and you're gonna tell me all about it and how it's influenced the publishing industry and also just you know So what is Romanticy for the uninitiated?”
Book Recommendations for Summer Reads
17:49 to 19:56
Explore various book recommendations perfect for summer vacations.
“Sybil Bedford was this extraordinary character.”
Exciting Upcoming Releases
19:56 to 22:38
Find out about new and returning authors with anticipated upcoming books.
“And in fact, we did interview her about it.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00David Shariatmadari:This is The Guardian.
0:07Rebecca Liu:Today, how to get back into reading books.
0:30Charlotte Northedge:What if I never got my living room painted?
0:32Rebecca Liu:What if I couldn't figure out what type of paint to use? What if I just used Thumbtack? I can hire a top-rated pro that knows everything about interior paint, easily compare prices, and read reviews. Thumbtack knows homes.
0:46Charlotte Northedge:Download the app today.
0:57Rebecca Liu:It is officially the National Year of Reading. You'll probably have noticed the campaigns, or at least Dua Lipa, urging you to pick up a book or listen to one. 40 % of British adults haven't gone near a book in the last year. Only one in five children are reading every day. We know those numbers used to be a lot higher and that reading for pleasure has been swapped for scrolling for doom. But how can you get the muscle back? And why does it matter?
1:33David Shariatmadari:I think it's that sense of total immersion in a world and the way it colours your day emotionally. I think when you get that, you know you've struck gold.
1:42Charlotte Northedge:There are all of these amazing novels that people have spent their lives writing in some cases and they're just there for you. You can just pick them up and read them whenever you want so why wouldn't you? I think we are all bored of talking about ChatGPT at parties and really interested in getting back to things that feel human. Reading a book can be a very human and rewarding thing.
2:06Rebecca Liu:and so as today in focus heads off for its annual summer break we thought we'd ask two book editors and a booker prize judge on what inspires them and their hot tips for books that might hopefully inspire you from the guardian i'm noshi niqbal today in focus what to read right now
2:38Rebecca Liu:Charlotte North Edge, David Sharamadari and Rebecca Liu, welcome to Today in Focus. Right, so this is a books episode and we know that fewer and fewer people are reading, including some of our listeners. So let's start perhaps with the people who haven't read a book in years. Why is 2026 the time to get back into it?
2:59David Shariatmadari:I think people are more conscious of the rule of devices over our lives. And that's just coming into sharp relief for lots of people. So now is a good time to try and bring the habit back.
3:11Charlotte Northedge:It's just finding a book that's going to really engross you. And we had a great piece by Naomi Alderman about doing a couch to 5k for reading, which I thought was just such a great idea because it's basically like, you know, just put aside 10 minutes a day, three days a week. It's really easy to do. And then you build it up a bit like, you know, the couch to 5k. So it's not actually 5 ,000 books that you're going to be reading in English. The idea is just checking. Just checking. No, it's much. Yeah, sorry.
3:40David Shariatmadari:Well, the idea is you get to an hour's reading a day after a certain period.
3:45Charlotte Northedge:Yeah, it's almost like a reflex just to pick up a book instead of your phone. And it's so hardwired into us now. Oh, I've got 10 minutes. I'm on the bus. I'll just look at my phone. You know, whereas actually, if you always have a book with you, then you've always got a bit of time to read.
4:02Rebecca Liu:Rebecca, you're actually a Booker Prize judge this year, which I assume means reading a lot of books. what are your tips?
4:11Charlotte Northedge:So it was in total this year 163 and you have about between seven to eight months to read them so I started just before Christmas. It's easy to fall into the fantasy of imagining reading only happens in these long and uninterrupted stretches of time but actually sometimes it was waiting for the bus for 10 minutes standing in line at the supermarket these small things do add up and then yes not seeing many people for seven months as well
4:40Rebecca Liu:and then putting my phone in a cupboard and just never looking back. Phone in cupboard keep your book on you when you're at the bus stop. Fair point.
4:58Rebecca Liu:so let's look at the guardian's biggest contribution to the world of literature this year which is a new definitive guide to the hundred best novels what were the surprises let's start there anyone who wants to know the full list can actually go and look at it on the site we're not going to go through the full 100 but surprises and notable absences well there was
5:21David Shariatmadari:there was the absence of the sort of big hitting 20th century male writers so john updike philip roth that felt like completely just gone well there was no updike at all no no roth yeah the
5:35Charlotte Northedge:number one slot was middle march by george elliott which i don't think anyone was surprised by and i I was really pleased to see it there because I had picked it as my number one. But having Toni Morrison's Beloved at number two kind of felt quite fresh and exciting. Obviously, it's a really definitive 20th century novel by a black author about slavery. It caused quite a lot of conversation online and that was a great thing for books and for reading.
6:02Rebecca Liu:Well, let's talk about some of that conversation, actually, because this list did draw a lot of attention. huge reader response and if I'm right is one of the most read things on The Guardian this year most read feature ever most read feature ever wow okay so an extraordinary amount of engagement so people obviously do still very much care about reading what was the feedback like well people
6:24David Shariatmadari:would quibble about the fact that their particular favorite wasn't on the list generally people were sort of delighted when authors they loved were and then the thing that came after the the critics list was a reader's list which that you know that was absolutely fascinating and people were how different was it well so lord of the rings was was number one rather than middle march
6:49Charlotte Northedge:okay and which was not in the top 100 critics at all um and yeah i think there were more contemporary novels in the in the reader's choices but there was a lot of crossover as well like for example the god of small things by arundhati roy was on both lists you know what i'm going to ask
7:07Rebecca Liu:next and i don't know if you're going to answer it but there was a tool on this piece online where you could actually calculate or just count which and how many of these books one had read conveniently i can't remember mine um but how many on the list did you read i'd read 56 come on david a gentleman
7:23David Shariatmadari:never reveals his number no i mean i i'm good i could claim my non-fiction pass on this but no i I was 40, so I think I was 43.
7:34Rebecca Liu:Okay, that's respectful. That's very respectable. You can still keep your jobs.
7:47Rebecca Liu:Cover the classics, but what about the major books that are topping the critics list this year? Charlotte, you're a joint books editor, so you've read plenty of these lists across the papers. Which books have been coming up time and time again, and what were the standouts for you?
8:02Charlotte Northedge:Well, I think one that's been a real big story of the summer has been The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which won the Women's Prize and is just a really, really lovely read and has also been really critically acclaimed. She's a debut author. She spent years getting rejections. The book itself is a series of letters written by a woman in her 70s kind of to all sorts of people. So some of them are to Joan Didion and some of them are to friends and neighbours and kind of you piece together her life through the letters. And it actually made me cry twice on the train. And then my other real standout has been The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout, which is on the book a long list as chosen by Rebecca and her fellow judges.
8:51Charlotte Northedge:and I mean I do love Elizabeth Strauss writing anyway but this particular book is about Trump's America basically says this male teacher in his late 50s musing on his long marriage and his career as a teacher and how life has changed in America quite suddenly. Rebecca I know that there are
9:15Rebecca Liu:particular books you can't talk about as a Booker Prize judge because all books are equal and you know probably you've signed something to that effect however uh can you can talk to me about the themes though I'm sure there are certain things that are coming up time and time again in the books you're reading what does that look like in the last year yes um it's really interesting
9:34Charlotte Northedge:because I think one of the takes from the long list after that was published recently was that you know the 13 books we chose were full of surrealism and quite experimental and I think that was actually a broader theme in the submissions that we read there was a lot of spirituality and magic and ghosts and my my own theory um reading these books is that you know i think we do live in a very unstable and confusing world and authors are almost trying to find new
10:04Rebecca Liu:ways of representing reality to capture that moment and what about in terms of non-fiction David what's been buzzy and sort of topped all the lists well I think London Falling by Patrick
10:16David Shariatmadari:Radden Keefe feels like it's the narrative non-fiction book of the summer it's an incredibly compelling story about the mysterious death of a young man Zach Brechtler it was a New Yorker article in the beginning and I've talked to a few people about this this was this was my feeling as well there was a sense that oh this story had already been around so why bother you know with this big hardback book.
10:39Rebecca Liu:How wrong you were.
10:40David Shariatmadari:How wrong I was. I think we may have had this conversation this year. I think we did have this conversation.
10:44Rebecca Liu:I nailed it in two days. Exactly.
10:46David Shariatmadari:Well, so when I started it, I was like, okay, no, this is unputdownable, to use a cliche. I think Brandon Keefe is just a master of that propulsive nonfiction writing. But it's also, I mean, I was thinking, you know, is it right to describe it as thriller-like? And I don't think that is quite right, because he doesn't sensationalize. It's sort of really humane but you you get totally immersed in the story and in the characters and you're sort of with the parents as they're basically trying to uncover what the hell happened to their son and and why the police are being so seemingly incompetent or worse in the search for answers
11:23Rebecca Liu:it's just a master class in journalism and in writing and just weaving all those stories together shout out to the fact that we did actually interview him on today in focus so listeners can go back and listen to that um and and what else what else is i mean another book i
11:38David Shariatmadari:liked and would recommend taking on holiday actually uh is a mind of my own by kathy burke obviously beloved actor theater director known for her comic characters with harry enfield sort of national treasure status but she's written a really sort of direct quite spare quite sort of episodic memoir but it's just got a style that kind of it's so evocative and you're suddenly you're with her in like 70s and 80s islington or on the set of a movie that's going a bit more trickily than she anticipated or at a crazy party where i mean she ends up accidentally smoking crap with sean rider um and there are just great anecdotes like that and it's just delivered in this spare style which i think is deceptively simple because it's actually very hard to pull off.
12:25Rebecca Liu:Yeah, we love Kathy Burke.
Read the full transcript
12:26David Shariatmadari:Yeah, exactly. We love Kathy Burke.
12:28Rebecca Liu:There is a sense, though, that, you know, critics lists don't always align with what the public are reading, as we've seen in the Readers vs. Critics Best 100 Books. But when it comes to buzzy debuts, what's actually being read by the public right now?
12:42Charlotte Northedge:Well, I mean, in terms of debuts, I'd say definitely the big story of the year has been Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, which is a kind of very clever concept which is basically that this trad wife so like a an American influencer who makes content about her farm life and her children and making sourdough and that kind of thing wakes up and finds herself in the past and you kind of start it thinking how on earth is she going to pull this together like how is she going to make this work is this you know has she woken up in a reality tv series or is this a time travel book is it a dream am I going to be really cross and throw this book across the room and actually for me she really pulled me in with the backstory about how she'd got into being a trad wife and it was quite surprisingly political really entertaining and then she did actually pull it off at the end yeah it was really political and also just a very again
13:45Rebecca Liu:compulsive read yeah that you just just get into I mean it's a real yeah real page turner so you mentioned yesteryear which Anne Hathaway has snapped up the rights to and is expected to be starring in that film at some point she's also in the Odyssey what impact has Nolan's film had on the book's world?
14:12David Shariatmadari:Well I think we've seen Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey which was published in 2017 sort of shoot up the bestseller lists again. I mean Nolan cited her translation as one of the inspirations for him. She then wrote a very stinging critique of the film which caused waves. I think she thought it was a bit superficial, missed out some sort of darker aspects of Odysseus's character. Also, it's hard to dislike Matt Damon, whereas Odysseus himself was like, you know, famously a complicated man. That's the epithet that Emily Wilson used in her translation. Her book, Crossing a Wine Dark Sea, is a sort of exposition of the translator's art.
14:56David Shariatmadari:And she's got lots of stuff in there about the Odyssey, including, you know, she goes on for pages about particular choices of words, which is really interesting. It's like a relatively scholarly book, but it's definitely readable.
15:09Rebecca Liu:Am I reading this by the pool?
15:11David Shariatmadari:You could read the Odyssey chapter. It's because it's a collection of essays and some of them are sort of reviews and so on.
15:17Charlotte Northedge:And has it given us a Homer bump? It has, and a poetry bump. So there's a big surge in poetry sales this year, which is exciting. They've actually surpassed 8 million during the first 30 weeks of 2026, which is an increase of more than 13%, which is huge. and you know great to see that people are going back to the source material.
15:39David Shariatmadari:I mean you know who would have thought that this enormous ancient poem would be something that people are just can't wait to get our hands on this summer?
15:47Rebecca Liu:From Greek classics though to romanticcy. I mean Rebecca I'm looking at you because I think it's hot on BookTok and you're gonna tell me all about it and how it's influenced the publishing industry and also just you know So what is Romanticy for the uninitiated?
16:06Charlotte Northedge:So Romanticy for the uninitiated is a blend between the romance literary tradition and fantasy, basically sex with dragons. And it is having a big moment on BookTok. Romanticy books are very popular at the moment. And a Romanticy bookshop has even opened in Oxford. Yeah. And one of our reporters went down to meet the people queuing outside. They were literally queuing down the street to get into this shop and claiming that they were not looking for just fairy smut, I think was the quote that stood out in my mind. But, you know, I think there is a sense that these books are really empowering. There's a lot of agency in the female heroines.
16:49Charlotte Northedge:There's a lot of love stories which people love. And they just sell hundreds of thousands of copies. And they're kind of holding up the book chart to some degree between them and Richard Osman.
17:00Rebecca Liu:Can you tell me a bit about the audience? I mean, who is obsessed with romanticity books and why are they propping up the industry?
17:08Charlotte Northedge:I mean, I think it's young women, predominantly women who find a lot of their book recommendations on TikTok. So it's kind of driving book sales now and you get kind of shelves in Waterstones called BookTok Made Me Buy It and sections in Amazon. And a lot of those are dedicated to romanticity novels. So it's really a genre that's kind of come from nowhere in the last kind of five years and is really hugely popular with women who are the majority of book buyers anyway.
17:49Rebecca Liu:what would be your go-to recommend from any period for anyone wanting something absorbing clever fun or you know just just good just a decent book David a book that I read on
18:03David Shariatmadari:holiday which really stayed with me and has a really summery vibe but a kind of almost feverish summary vibe is a book called A Compass Error by Sybil Bedford. Sybil Bedford was this extraordinary character. She was German. She repaired to the south of France and mixed with all these sort of interesting bohemian people. And it's a young woman sort of embarking on, I mean, I shouldn't say too much in case anyone reads it, but it's a coming of age story and it's really compelling. It's quite short. It's the perfect length for a holiday. If you're going somewhere Mediterranean, it's ideal.
18:36Rebecca Liu:And Rebecca in terms of paperbacks for the summer are there any that you think actually definitely pick that one up if you're headed out on your easy jet somewhere hot and sunny?
18:46Charlotte Northedge:There's a novel called The Lonely Londoners by the Trinidadian writer Sam Selvan who then emigrated to London. It's from 1956 and it follows a group of young men who have moved from the Caribbean to the capital. And it's just really funny and well observed and has towards the end, one of the best descriptions of summer in the city that I've ever read. And then the other book that's been coming up a lot in my casual conversations is in fact, Annie Arnaud's Simple Passion. It's a very short book that captures the sort of all consuming nature of an obsessive love affair and I think you know having a summer crush and feeling like slightly as a mid-30 something too old to do so and then you realize too old for a summer crush come on guys I know well you know sometimes never too old being a teenager again it's slightly embarrassing you know but um like reading this and realizing Annie or Noah has also been through it uh was
19:45Rebecca Liu:quite helpful we haven't mentioned the the kind of books that you know will fill up the WH Smith at the airport, you know, the big embossed letters, basically a bit of holiday trash. Who's got some? I want some.
19:57Charlotte Northedge:What would you pick? I think Lily King, Heart the Lover. Terrible title, I would have to say. And in fact, we did interview her about it. And she did say that her own daughter told her not to use that title. But that is a really great, clever, romantic read. The other huge book talk phenomenon is Frieda McFadden, who I think currently has five books in the top 10. very propulsive thrillers and she has just been a huge phenomenon and has any number of books that you might want to read but the housemaid is the one that got made into a film and has been a huge hit
20:37Rebecca Liu:coming up what to read in september and beyond
20:51Rebecca Liu:are there any new reads that you're particularly excited about recommending
20:55David Shariatmadari:i'm very excited about a new michael lewis book i mean his last book was about sang bankman freed the crypto billionaire but he's known for these again these immersive narrative non-fiction works his book is called blockers and it's basically about the people who stood up to doge the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. So it's an inside the room kind of story of that moment, those kind of hectic 60 days at the beginning of the second Trump administration when Elon Musk came in with his band of 18-year-old coders or whatever and tried to rip everything up. And it's the story of the people who resisted that, hence blockers.
21:39David Shariatmadari:So I think that's going to be great.
21:41Charlotte Northedge:Okay. And what about in terms of fiction, Charlotte? Yeah, in fiction there's quite a lot of big exciting returns. So Barbara Kingsolver, who obviously won a Pulitzer for Demon Copperhead, which was a retelling of David Copperfield. She's coming back with quite a different novel. It's called Partita and also Louise Kennedy, who wrote Trespasses, which was a kind of real standout debut, got made into a Channel 4 drama with Gillian Anderson. So she has got a new novel called Stations. It's about kind of this generation of Irish emigrants to the UK and kind of cycles of loss and addiction. And it's very moving.
22:24Charlotte Northedge:and then finally Bonnie Garmus who wrote Lessons in Chemistry which was such a huge phenomenon three or four years ago is back with a novel called Peck and Peck which I haven't seen yet but it's perhaps unlikely set in a poetry periodical okay so we'll see what that's to offer
22:45Rebecca Liu:yeah exactly guys thank you so much for your time thank you thank you
22:53Rebecca Liu:That was non-fiction books editor David Sharik-Madari, joint books editor Charlotte Northedge, and acting Saturday culture editor slash Booker Prize judge Rebecca Liu. My thanks to all of them. You can check out The Guardian's 100 best books list at theguardian.com. And that's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Nashi Nikbal. It was produced by Eleanor Biggs and Nilofa Umarali. Sound designers by Rudy Zagadlo. and the executive producers were Sammy Kent and Huma Halili. We'll be back this afternoon with the latest. Today in Focus, we'll be back with you, rested and renewed, on Tuesday 1st September.
23:38David Shariatmadari:This is The Guardian.
