Damian Barr shares his favourite books
The writer and broadcaster picks works by Alice Walker, Elif Shafak and others

The writer and broadcaster picks four of his favourites. His next novel, "The Two Roberts", will be published by Canongate in September 2025.
May Day
Jackie Kay, 2024
This inspiring collection speaks directly to our fractured and fractious moment and offers a way out. Raised to believe in the power of protest by her adoptive activist parents, Jackie Kay recounts a lifetime of marching – against wars, against racism but always for love. Her poems contain anger but aren't angry; they contain grief but never surrender to despair.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Available on The Week Bookshop
The Color Purple
Alice Walker, 1982
This story of Celie and Nettie, two sisters torn apart in Depression-era Georgia, is my touchstone. It gave me courage. Like Celie, I faced abuse at home and hatred in the world. I felt ugly, alone and afraid. Reading Celie's story, in words that sounded spoken, made me believe her and myself.
Available on The Week Bookshop
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
There Are Rivers in the Sky
Elif Shafak, 2024
I can't stop thinking about this epic novel, stretching from the cruel splendour of Mesopotamia to Victorian London and the environmental catastrophe of now. Elif Shafak charts one drop of water across time and space – from falling as rain on a king's head, to falling as a snowflake on a baby boy who will grow up to uncover a poem that changes history. Water remembers. People forget. That's the tragedy at the heart of this incredible story about all the ways we (dis)connect.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Some Men in London: QueerLife 1945-1959 & 1960-1967, Vols. 1 & 2
Peter Parker, 2024
These astonishing anthologies take us from VE Day to 1967, when homosexuality was decriminalised in England and Wales (but not Scotland or NI). We meet ordinary men and famous faces such as John Gielgud. Parker skilfully synthesises the raw material of history – newspapers, diaries, letters – and a story emerges of a community with its own culture and language, thriving despite unjust laws and moral panics.
Available on The Week Bookshop
-
October 13 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Monday's political cartoons include Donald Trump's consolation prize, government workers during shutdown, and more
-
Can Gaza momentum help end the war in Ukraine?
Today's Big Question Zelenskyy’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles hints at ‘warming relations’ between Ukraine and US
-
The Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners being released
The Explainer Triumphant Donald Trump addresses the Israeli parliament as families on both sides of the Gaza war reunite with their loved ones
-
The delightful, smutty world of Jilly Cooper
In the Spotlight Millions mourn the ‘Mrs Kipling of sex’
-
Lee Miller at the Tate: a ‘sexy yet devastating’ show
The Week Recommends The ‘revelatory’ exhibition tells the photographer’s story ‘through her own impeccable eye’
-
6 eye-catching rounded homes
Feature Featuring a central spiral staircase in Michigan and a Balinese-style estate with ocean views in Hawaii
-
A House of Dynamite: a ‘nail-biting’ nuclear-strike thriller
The Week Recommends ‘Virtuoso talent’ Kathryn Bigelow directs a ‘fast-paced’ and ‘tense’ ‘symphony of dread’
-
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: a ‘haunting’ history of modern Afghanistan
The Week Recommends Lyse Doucet’s sensitively written work traces over 50 years of Kabul’s ‘Inter-Con’ hotel
-
The Smashing Machine: Dwayne Johnson is ‘magnetic’ in gritty biopic
The Week Recommends The wrestler-turned-Hollywood-actor takes on the role of troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr
-
Shadow Ticket: Thomas Pynchon’s first novel in over a decade
The Week Recommends Zany whodunnit about a private eye in 1930s Milwaukee could be the 88-year-old author’s ‘last hurrah’
-
Southern barbecue: This year’s top three
Feature A weekend-only restaurant, a 90-year-old pitmaster, and more