The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

It’s 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer’s block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey – a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book – she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Drawn into their irresistible world, Juliet sets sail for the island, changing her life forever.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

1939, Nazi Germany. Young Liesel picks up a single object by her brother’s graveside. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times and when Liesel’s foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, her world is both opened up, and closed down.

Possession by A.S. Byatt

Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. Maud Bailey is researching the life and work of her distant relative, a little known nineteenth-century poet named Christabel LaMotte. Roland Mitchell is looking into an obscure moment in the life of another Victorian poet, the celebrated Randolph Henry Ash. As they dig into the facts and discover a secret connection between the two poets, the two scholars also find themselves falling in love.

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted by Robert Hillman

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted is a tremendous new novel by award-winning author Robert Hillman. It is the story of Tom Hope, a farmer, and Hannah Babel, a small-town bookseller. Tom dares to believe they could make each other happy. But it is 1968 – 24 years since Hannah and her own little boy arrived at Auschwitz – and Tom is taking on a battle with heartbreak he can barely even begin to imagine.

Public library and other stories by Ali Smith

Why are books so very powerful? What do the books we’ve read over our lives make of us? What does the unravelling of our tradition of public libraries, so hard-won but now in jeopardy, say about us? In this brilliantly inventive story collection, the incomparable Ali Smith examines what we do with books and what they do with us – how they travel with us; how they shock, change and challenge us; how they remind us to pay attention to the world we make.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

A.J. Fikry owns a failing bookshop. His wife has just died, in tragic circumstances. His rare and valuable first edition has been stolen. His life is a wreck. Amelia is a book rep, with a big heart, and a lonely life. And Maya is the baby who ends up on A.J.’s bookshop floor with a note. What happens in the bookshop that changes the lives of these seemingly normal but extraordinary characters?

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

A young woman comes of age and realises that life is not a Gothic novel in this classic from Jane Austen. During an eventful season at Bath, young Catherine Morland becomes enamoured with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who introduces Catherine to the joys of Gothic romances, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father’s house, Northanger Abbey. There, influenced by novels of horror and intrigue, Catherine comes to imagine terrible crimes committed by General Tilney, but must learn the difference between fiction and reality.

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George (translated by Simon Pare)

On a beautifully restored barge on the Seine, Jean Perdu runs a bookshop, or rather, a ‘literary apothecary’, as this bookseller possesses a rare gift for sensing which books will soothe the troubled souls of his customers. The only person he is unable to cure, it seems, is himself. He has nursed a broken heart ever since the night, 21 years ago, when the love of his life fled Paris, leaving behind a handwritten letter that he has never dared read. His memories and his love have been gathering dust – until the arrival of an enigmatic new neighbour.