Top Ten Reads for May
From a Booker Prize-winning author's meditative new novel set on the Isle of Harris to a book of love stories from some of the world’s most turbulent places. From an intimate and touching reckoning with grief to a funny, shocking and deeply affecting feminist satire. Presenting your Top Ten Reads for May
Ghost Stories: A Memoir
Ghost Stories: A Memoir
05/05/2026
Told in a series of appropriately unmoored, episodic memories, Hustvedt’s touching memoir covers the 43 years she spent with her husband, the writer, poet and filmmaker Paul Auster. From their first encounter in 1980s New York to his death from cancer in 2024, it is both a reckoning with grief and a tender portrait of a creatively rich, lastingly intimate and deeply happy marriage.
How to Kill a Language
How to Kill a Language
07/05/2026
As Smith Galer’s beloved Nonna lay dying, she realised that she was also about to lose the North Italian dialect that her grandmother spoke; a language she could understand but not speak herself. It inspired her travels to research and write this enthralling account of 10 of the estimated 7,000 languages that are predicted to be extinct by the end of this century due to war, climate breakdown, migration, nationalism or simple neglect. From Ukrainian and Ladino to Kichwa, Hebrew and Dagbani, it is also about the culture and knowledge that we lose for good when a language is killed off.
Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe
Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe
07/05/2026
Weimar: A town whose name is forever associated with troubled economic and political times, but also forward-looking modernist movements particularly with regard to the arts and culture. Hoyer presents an immersive, thought-provoking account of what it was like to live through the Weimar Republic and the early years of the Third Reich in Germany, through the eyes of the titular town’s inhabitants.
The Things We Never Say
The Things We Never Say
07/05/2026
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 10 previous novels—including My Name Is Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge— comes a story of a chance incident in a man’s life that doubles as a poignant meditation on loneliness, friendship and free will in a capsizing world. Strout's first novel set outside of Crosby, Maine, introduces a new cast of characters to her inimitable brand of skilled but soulful writing.
Hexes of the Deadwood Forest
Hexes of the Deadwood Forest
07/05/2026
“A torpedo of a book” says Olga Tokarczuk. “The kind of debut that grabs you by the collar” says Dua Lipa's Service95. Need we say more? Well, just in case… Hexes of the Deadwood Forest is a riproaring novel that combines ecological fury, female estrangement, and anti-institutional bite into a work of funny, shocking and deeply affecting feminist satire. Tokarczuk's own Drive Your Plow… is the most obvious comparison, but Hexes… is a genuinely, fiercely original work.
I Want You to Be Happy
I Want You to Be Happy
21/05/2026
Previously published by Sally Rooney in The Stinging Fly, and in a debut short-story collection Reward System in 2022, Jem Calder is one of the most exciting young writers working today. The story of a new couple searching for meaning and connection in modern times, I Want You to Be Happy perfectly captures the listlessness, anxiety and precarity of your 20s and 30s.
This is Also a Love Story: Searching for Good in a Divided World
This is Also a Love Story: Searching for Good in a Divided World
21/05/2026
In her profoundly affecting second book, Hayden—winner of the Orwell Prize for her debut My Fourth Time, We Drowned—shares some of the many love stories she has collected while reporting from some of the world’s most turbulent places. It would be misleading to say this is an unequivocally uplifting book, but it is nourishing to be reminded of the spotlights of love and altruism that illuminate even the darkest of stages.
Said the Dead
Said the Dead
21/05/2026
A complete wonder of a book, Said the Dead blends memoir, history and ghost story, drawing on archives and old casebooks to reimagine the past lives that unfolded within the walls of a derelict 19th-century insane asylum in Cork. Anyone who has read the former Foyles Book of the Year A Ghost in the Throat will be eagerly anticipating this haunting (haunted?), gorgeous, uncategorisable masterwork.
John of John
John of John
21/05/2026
From the Booker Prize winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, a dark and immersive, richly layered novel that is sure to have Stuart on the shortlists for the big prizes again. Set on the Scottish island of Harris during the 1990s, John of John tells the story of 22-year-old John-Calum (Cal), son of crofter and tweed weaver John and grandson of already deceased former soldier Calum.
The Vivisectors
The Vivisectors
21/05/2026
The author of cult hit The Doloriad—winner of the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize—returns with a satirical and surreal campus love story set in a crumbling university city overrun by vegetation. Following a reclusive graduate whose attempts to navigate campus conspiracies set her on a collision course, The Vivisectors is an all-consuming, visceral novel that will linger long after you have finished it.
