Recommending books is high risk – but it's also high reward | Fiction - The Guardian

Since the lockdown began, I have giving friends and strangers lists of books to read - and the three that are always on there are by Candice Carty-Williams, The Guardian.

‘Woefully, nobody recommends any books to me, the great recommender.’
Photo: RayArt Graphics/Alamy

Recommending books is a tricky but satisfying business. It’s high risk, high reward. Every day I wake up to messages from my friends asking me to recommend “something I’d like” to them. That’s not even a clear directive but still, challenge accepted. And that was before the lockdown.

Now, I’m being asked for lists of books for people to read. So. I dutifully drag myself out of bed and go to my bookshelves. I spend a few minutes thinking about the person. What do we speak about, most of all? Is it politics, is it love? What makes them laugh? What makes them angry? Then I think about whether or not the content of some books might be challenging, or triggering...

Woefully, nobody recommends any books to me, the great recommender, but as a gift to you all, here are the three books I tell absolutely everyone to read: Ordinary People by Diana Evans, How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs and Citizen by Claudia Rankine.
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Source: The Guardian