This World Book Day, we've asked our English Literature faculty what books they think everyone should have on their bookshelves.
To mark World Book Day, we've asked our some of our English Literature experts to share with us the one book they think everyone should read.
Human Acts (Han Kang, 2014)
All of the books written by Han Kang (who received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature) would be worthy of mention. But Human Acts is, to my mind, the most brilliant of her novels that have yet been translated into English: it is an extremely moving, and at times upsetting, piece of writing, exploring the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea (a student-led pro-democracy event) and its attendant violence. It is, like much of Han's work, preoccupied with issues of memory, of how to remember and how to speak about things that defy representation (and that perhaps have been deliberately unrepresented in popular memory); Han's sparse, poetic prose is beautifully rendered into English by her frequent collaborator Deborah Smith.
- Dr Jimmy Packham
Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813)
My recommendation would be Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, because it is the book that launched the modern romance novel, and that continues to be read and adapted over 200 years later, including a new Netflix series starring Emma Corrin and Jack Lowden.
- Dr Amy Burge
Middlemarch (George Eliot, 1871/1872)
Still for my money the best novel in the English language! Eliot said that the purpose of art was the extension of our sympathies. Across an entangled cast of characters, Middlemarch makes you see things from the point of view of people who, like all of us, are not as good or clever, kind or successful, as we might hope to be.
- Professor John Holmes
The Talented Mr Ripley (Patricia Highsmith, 1955)
So my recommendation is The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith because it’s a tense psychological thriller that is also about modern identity.
- Dr Rex Ferguson
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon, 2000)
My pick would be The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, a sweeping multi-era novel that tracks that lives, loves and heartbreaks of two cousins as they emerge (and help shape) the Golden Age of Comics. Even if you’re not much of a comics person (I’m not), this novel is wonderfully atmospheric, populated by beautifully rendered characters, and has (both on the level of narrative and syntax!) one of the most perfectly executed endings I’ve ever encountered.
- Dr Toria Johnson
Associate Professor in North American Literature
Biographical and contact information for Dr Jimmy Packham, Associate Professor in North American Literature at the University of Birmingham.
Associate Professor in Popular Fiction
Biographical and contact information for Dr Amy Burge, Associate Professor in Popular Fiction, Department of English Literature, University of Birmingham.
Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture
Biographical and contact information for Professor John Holmes, Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham.
Senior Lecturer in Modern Literature
Biographical and contact information for Rex Ferguson, University of Birmingham.
Associate Professor in Early Modern Literature
Biographical and contact information for Dr Toria Johnson, Associate Professor in Early Modern Literature and Romanticism in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham.
