Damian Barr shares his favourite books

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.

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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

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