When was the last time you got lost in a great book?
Every year, National Read a Book Day celebrates the incredible benefits of reading. From reducing stress to improving your memory and concentration, reading is the perfect hobby to pick up if you’re looking for a way to spend your free time this summer.
This 6 September, join people around the world as they take time out of their busy schedules to read and spread the joy of their favourite books.
If you’re struggling to find a book that suits your taste, we’re here to help. Read on to discover 10 award-winning books to add to your to-be-read pile.
1. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Transposing a Victorian epic novel to the American South is no easy task, but Barbara Kingsolver’s retelling of David Copperfield set in the mountains of southern Appalachia enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion to speak for a new generation of lost boys.
This magnificent story about people born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind won Kingsolver the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize in 2023.
2. Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel
An enigmatic flaneur named Gaustine opened a “clinic for the past” as a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s patients. Each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail to allow people to travel back in time, but it’s the unnamed narrator’s job to stop the past from flooding into the present.
Time Shelter won Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov and his English translator, Angela Rodelm, the International Booker Prize.
3. Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu
This touching memoir focuses on the beautiful friendship between writer Hua Hsu and his college friend Ken, who was brutally murdered in a carjacking. The novel touches on the importance of friendships and the process of grieving someone who died unexpectedly.
This emotional book won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the autobiography category.
4. Happy Place by Emily Henry
A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for the last of their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends. If this is the last weekend they’ll have together in their beloved seaside cottage, they won’t be the ones to ruin it… no matter how desperately they still want each other.
Happy Place is one of bestselling author Emily Henry’s most beloved rom-com books and won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance.
5. Nettle & Bone by T Kingfisher
After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra finally realises no one is coming to their rescue – so she decides to save them herself.
With a fantastic supporting cast of a powerful gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon, Marra’s journey won Kingfisher a Hugo Award for Best Novel.
6. The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett
40 years ago, Steven Smith discovered a copy of a children’s book with the margins filled with strange markings.
After his English teacher becomes obsessed with the idea that famous children’s author Edith Twyford’s books have a hidden code running through them, she mysteriously vanishes, and Steven’s memory won’t allow him to remember what happened.
Fresh out of prison, Steven’s journey to finally uncover this intriguing puzzle won a British Book Award in the Crime and Thriller category.
7. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
An Irish mother faces a terrible choice as two officers from GNSB, Ireland’s newly formed secret police, show up on her doorstep to interrogate her trade unionist husband. When first her husband and then her eldest son vanishes, Eilish finds herself caught in a nightmare scenario.
Paul Lynch’s novel exploring how far Eilish will go to save her family won the 2023 Booker Prize.
8. Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 by Carl Phillips
Then the War is the next step in Carl Phillip’s quest of self-discovery. Exploring the time of rising racial conflict in the United States, he explores themes of intimacy, queerness, and moral inquiry in this collection of beautiful poems, which won him the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
9. Babel by RF Kuang
Babel is a historical fantasy epic which grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire in a world where words carry real magic.
Kuang’s discussion surrounding whether powerful institutions can be changed from within, or if revolution always requires violence, won her a British Book Award and the Nebula Award.
