Books to break your reading rut

Circe by Madeline Miller

Latin and Greek teacher turned novelist Madeline Miller breathes new life into ancient myths with best-sellers The Song of Achilles and Circe. Both are irresistibly readable: juicy, salacious and stuffed with beautiful people, brave feats and broken hearts – sort of like a Jilly Cooper bonkbuster with added togas.

The epic plots unravel at pace, but Miller maintains a keen characterisation that leaves ancient myths feeling distinctly modern. Circe, especially, turns the fabled fate of a lone sorceress into a battle-cry for 21st century feminism.

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Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant by Joel Golby

Audacious by name and justified by talent, this collection of essays is archly relatable and viciously sharp.

Journalist Joel Golby straddles subjects with blithe brilliance, taking you from a tender account of becoming an orphan to the bizarre rituals of a Saudi Arabian camel beauty contest. All the laugh out loud and fight back tears cliches are activated in prose so understated it feels like pub banter.

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant is the way to wean yourself off viral articles and onto a more enriching reading experience, without sacrificing any of the comedy or freshness.

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Reasons to be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe

If you’re new to Nina Stibbe’s delightfully observed comedy then her latest, aptly named, book provides plenty of Reasons to be Cheerful.

Go back and start at the beginning of Stibbe’s trio of stories about the hapless Vogel family. Combining the eccentric glamour of I Capture the Castle with the parochial minutiae of Adrian Mole, our wry narrator Lizzie charts her dysfunctional family’s changing circumstances. First Man at the Helm follows the children’s attempts at finding their unstable divorcee mother a suitable, sensible partner. Then Paradise Lodge returns to our heroine on the cusp of adulthood as she learns profound life lessons from an after-school job at an old people’s home.

Finally Reasons to be Cheerful captures the thrills and disappointments of moving out, finding a job and falling in love.

While the wit is as warm and comforting as a cuppa soup, it's the quirks and poignant plot twists that make Stibbe's writing so memorable.

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Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

Lisa Halliday’s debut novel is thrillingly smart without ever feeling daunting. In spare, stylish prose she starts with the story of a young woman having an affair with a famous writer almost three times her age.

Then we shift abruptly to a first person narrative from an American-Iraqi man who is detained and questioned by airport security.

The third and final section of the story is a transcript of the aforementioned writer appearing on Desert Island Discs, which is so vividly-drawn you can practically hear Kirsty Young’s soft Scottish drawl.

In each of these stories, Halliday gives us three different moulds of what it means to grow up and find your place in the world. Along with the satisfying eureka moment when the narratives suddenly slot together, there’s a subtler sense of blurring between lovers, generations, continents and cultures.

Asymmetry is the kind of book you tear through then dip back into in search of all the connections and sly overlaps.

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Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

In Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the first book of the Dark Star trilogy, Marlon James turns his Dickensian storytelling talents to ancient African mythology. Adventure, enchantment and tradition entwine to tell the story of a hunter seeking a lost boy.

Stuffed with enough extravagant adventures to hook fans of Tolkien or Game of Thrones, this is a vast, vibrant story to sink your teeth into. And it's a wholly absorbing, fantastical distraction from real life.

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Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Live out your rock n roll fantasies with this glittering account of the groupies and glamour surrounding a fictional band in 70s L.A. Daisy Jones and the Six might be made up, but their meteoric rise and diva band-members resound with life.

Written in a journalistic interview style, it offers a shift in gear from the standard novel, with action, first person accounts and individual voices setting the scene instead of description.

The documentary script text shifts propel the plot, as the raucous characters take you right in to the nitty gritty of creative highs and hedonistic lows.

It’s the kind of enthralling entertaining read that can you visualise (indeed the TV rights have already been snapped up). The only disappointment is not being able to listen to the back catalogue of this made-up band.

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