Hay Festival has launched The Pleasure List, a crowd-sourced selection of 39 adult reading recommendations released on the opening day of this year’s festival.
The list, run in partnership with the National Year of Reading 2026, was compiled following a public call-out that ran over six months.
Hay Festival said "thousands of readers" took part. The 39 titles, chosen to mark the festival’s 39th year, range from literary classics to "#BookTok bestsellers", with fantasy, crime and romance all making "a strong showing".
Selections include Sarah J Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses (Bloomsbury), Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life (Picador), Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing (Piatkus), Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet (Tinder Press), Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club (Viking) and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate), alongside classics including Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and 1984. The full list is available on Hay Festival’s website.
Source: The Bookseller