On 19 November we celebrated our 10th birthday with a party and inaugural anniversary lecture by Jeanette Winterson at the British Library.
On the evening we asked guests to share the name of a good book by pinning it on our recommended reads board. We also asked our followers on twitter and friends on facebook to recommend books for different age groups using the hashtags #bestbookforkids #bestbookforteens and #bestbookforadults. We hope you find a book you enjoy in the lists below.
Books recommended by 10th birthday party guests
Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale
The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
A history of the world in 10 ½ chapters by Julian Barnes
This is All by Aiden Chambers
Nightwalk by Chris Yates
A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin
Tom’s Midnight Garden by Phillippa Pearce
Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton
The Magus by John Fowles
Food Combining for Health by Doris Grant and Jean Choice
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
Delilah darling is in the Library by Jeanne Willis and Rosie Reeve
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Idle traveller by Dan Kieran
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Marquez
Tales from the Mall by Ewan Morrison
Wonder by RJ Palacio
The Elephant’ s Journey by José Saramago
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Book of Disappear by Pessoa Com
Fahrenheit 45! Ray Bradbury
The Vatican Cellars by Andre Gide and Dorothy Bussy
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O’Brian
Tonight Another Soldier by Andy McNab
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Angels by Elizabeth Taylor
The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edward de Waal
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Envy by Gregg Olsen
The Stories Behind London’s Streets by Peter Thurgood
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
All books in the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith
Last Orders by Graham Swift
Heidi by John Spyri
How to be a Student Entrepreneur by Junior Ogunyemi
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Fault of our Stars by John Green
Longitude by Dava Sobel
Autobiography of Barack Obama
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Karoo by Steve Tesich
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
Overground, Underground by Andrew Martin
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Frankie Says Relapse by Siobhan Green
Grimble by Clement Freud
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby
London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins
Jupiter’s Travels by Ted Salon
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz
Thomas Chatterton by Peter Ackroyd
The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carre
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Petals of Blood by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood
Chance by Joseph Conrad
Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
Night Falls on the City by Sarah Gainham
Anything written by Carl Hiaasen
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
You Can Get it If You Really Want by Levi Roots
American Gods by Neil Simon
Book recommendations at our party (photo copyright Robin Mayes)
Books recommended on twitter and facebook
#bestbooksforkids
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
Worst Witch by Jill Murphy
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
Keeper by Mal Peet
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
ITCH by Simon Mayo
The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
Killer by Jimmy Coates
The Legend of Spud Murphy by Eoin Colfer
Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Archer’s Goon by Diana Wynne Jones
Meg’s Castle by Helen Nicoll & Jan Pienkowski
The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater
Mr Magnolia by Quentin Blake
Owl at Home by Arnold Lobel
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Stig of the Dump by Clive King
The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin
How To Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
Baby Brains by Simon James
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Mighty Fizz Chilla by Philip Ridley
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Heathrow Nights by Jan Mark
Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr Seuss
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Vanishing Act by Mette Jakobsen
#bestbookforteens
The Gone series by Michael Grant
The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
Amy Peppercorn: Starry-Eyed and Screaming by John Brindley and Amy Peppercorn
Books by John Green
#bestbookforadults
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
