The Reading List

A faded list.

Nine favourite stories.

For two strangers, friendship is only a page away . . .

When Mukesh Patel pops to the local library, forgoing his routine of grocery shopping and David Attenborough documentaries, he has no idea his life’s about to change.

He meets Aleisha, a reluctant librarian and the keeper of a curious reading list – just a scrappy piece of paper with the names of 9 stories. It doesn’t seem anything special. Yet something tells her to keep it close . . .

Story by story, Mukesh and Aleisha work their way through the list – their worries slipping away with every encounter, with every world discovered in their unlikely book club of two.

A fresh chance at life, at friendship, wasn’t on the cards for these lonely souls – but every story starts somewhere . . .

‘The story is an absolute joy . . . A captivating and exquisitely crafted debut' — Sunday Times bestseller, Heidi Swain

‘Absolutely captures the magic of reading and libraries' — Louise Hare

‘A gorgeous debut novel about the power reading has to bring people together, no matter the barriers of age, culture and class' — Red

ISBN: 9780008391331 | Published: 28 July 2021 | Trade paperback | 432 pages
ISBN: 9780008391362 | Published: 6 March 2023 | Paperback | 432 pages