There are few guarantees on holidays but even the most lacklustre break can be rescued by taking along something riveting to read. And even a brilliant time away can be crystallised in the moments you spend glued to a paperback. The happiest reading experience of my adult life was in Seville a few years ago, when I barely spoke for the first 36 hours as I sat, in 40-degree heat, tearing through an advance copy of Sally Rooney’s Normal People.
You may prefer something more outré — Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life is not my idea of a fun holiday read but I have a friend for whom the most memorable part of her stay in a French gite was when she lost all composure and began sobbing and pacing round the courtyard during a crucial point in the narrative.
