Books and Beyond: Top reads

It’s all about reading recommendations this week on Books and Beyond.

Librarians Karen and Louisa highlight the top 10 most requested books at Auckland Libraries at the moment, the most popular choices Aucklanders made when asked what book they’d take to a desert island, two very different online book lists, and what they are currently reading.

Read on for all the books mentioned in the show.

Karen is reading and recommends:

• The Graham Kerr cookbook: The Galloping Gourmet by Graham Kerr
• The cost of living by Deborah Levy
• Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

Louisa is reading and recommends:

• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• Call me Zebra by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
• My grandfather would have shot me: a black woman discovers her family's Nazi past by Jennifer Teege
• My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt

Top 10 most requested books at Auckland Libraries right now are:

1. Still me by Jojo Moyes
2. 12 rules for life: an antidote to chaos by Jordan Peterson
3. The woman in the window by A.J. Finn
4. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman
5. Educated by Tara Westover
6. The fallen by David Baldacci
7. A year at Hotel Gondola by Nicky Pellegrino
8. The subtle art of not giving a f*ck: a counterintuitive approach to living a good life by Mark Manson
9. The year that changed everything by Cathy Kelly
10. Little fires everywhere by Celeste Ng

Bike Te Atatu recommended cycling read (for after cycling), in particular:

• The road to valour: Gino Bartali, Tour de France legend and Italy's secret World War Two hero by Aili and Andres McConnon

David Bowie's top 100 reads

Visit The Independent to see David Bowie’s top 100 booklist, which is the basis for the David Bowie Book Club.

Some recommendations from the Central City Library - The Box Book Club:

• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (also on David Bowie’s book list)
• So you’ve been publicly shamed by Jon Ronson
• Notes from a scandal by Zoe Heller
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Aucklanders' top four choices for their Desert Island read:

1. The Bible
2. Harry Potter
3. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon 
4. Any book by Nalini Singh 

Auckland Libraries' new radio show Books and Beyond explores the world of books with guest authors, recommended reads, gems from the Central City Library basement and… beyond.

Catch us on Planet FM104.6, Sundays at 9.35 pm. Listen to recent shows via the Auckland Libraries podcast.