Talking Books: Author recommendations

Shopping for second-hand books can be hit or miss. All too often the choice available is overwhelming and we leave empty-handed. We’ve asked some well known authors to tell us about the books they recommend looking out for, some of which they’ve picked up in Oxfam bookshops around the country.

If you’re in need of a little inspiration then have a look at our authors’ recommended reading.

"Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis by Wendy Cope which I’ve been meaning to read for ages. Thanks to Oxfam, now I have."

Marina Lewycka

Birds of America by Lorrie Moore - "Funny, moving, beautiful, intelligent. I really, really wish I could write like this."

Mark Haddon

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - "The only living author on my list, McCarthy is woefully overdue for the Nobel Prize."

Nicholas Shakespeare

Music and Silence by Rose Tremain - "...a remarkable writer with an unfailing elegance and originality of style."

Joanna Trollope

King Solomon's Ring New Light on Animal Ways by Konrad Lorenz - "…more than your bog standard reductive behaviourist. Lorenz writes with wit."

Sebastian Faulks

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates - "I don’t think anyone’s life is simple or easy, even with enough food on the table, and Yates was depressive enough as a person to appreciate this fact."

Lionel Shriver

Short Stories by Alice Munro - "Alice Munro is one of my favourite writers. Her short stories are so perfect, poignant and thought provoking, she makes novel writing seem unnecessary."

Esther Freud