Hay Festival has today announced The Pleasure List, a crowd-sourced selection of adult reading recommendations to celebrate the many joys to be found in fiction.

Run in partnership with the National Year of Reading 2026, The Pleasure List campaign encourages reading for pleasure in adults, sharing the most un-put-downable books.

A public call-out for suggestions ran over six months with thousands of readers having their say to inform the final selection. The list is released on the opening day of Hay Festival 2026, the UK’s largest, free-to-enter celebration of books.

Made up of 39 titles – to mark the Festival’s 39th year – the selection offers a range of inspiration for readers of all ages, from literary classics to #BookTok bestsellers, capturing a broad mix of genres with fantasy, crime and romance all making a strong showing.

Hay Festival president Stephen Fry said: “You might have heard that this year is our National Year of Reading. Great news for book lovers, but the stats show we’re a dying breed. Fewer and fewer people in Britain are reading for pleasure and we want to change that. So with the help of passionate readers all over the country, Hay Festival has pulled together a reading list that can entice all of us back to books – The Pleasure List – built from recommendations, crafted to offer something for everyone. Settle in, you’re in for a treat.”

A Court of Thorns and Roses - Sarah J Maas

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Backman

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

Dune - Frank Herbert

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros

Hamnet - Maggie O’Farrell

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone - J.K. Rowling

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie

Night Watch - Terry Prachett

Northern Lights - Philip Pullman

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Marquez

Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

Refugee Boy - Benjamin Zephaniah

Riders - Jilly Cooper

Right Ho, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse

Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

The Blue Book of Nebo - Manon Steffan Ros

The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak

The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien

The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

The Shining - Stephen King

The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman

Things We Lost in the Fire - Mariana Enríquez

Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

1984 - George Orwell

Hay Festival CEO Julie Finch said: “Over the past six months we have been inspired as the public nominations for our Pleasure List campaign have flooded in. It has been a reminder of the joyful place reading holds in many of our lives – the power of great stories to delight and entertain us – a joy we’re keen to spread as far as possible in the National Year of Reading. With this reading list we hope to offer something for everyone to get stuck into – whatever your passions and interests, there are writers eager to take you on a journey. Enjoy!”

Director of the National Year of Reading David Hayman said: “The National Year of Reading is all about making reading relevant, accessible and most importantly, full of joy – and Hay Festival’s Pleasure List fits this campaign perfectly. We hope this brilliant list inspires conversation, debate, and – most importantly – millions more people to Go All in and find the books and stories that bring them joy during the National Year of Reading.”

The campaign complements other National Year of Reading projects at Hay Festival 2026, including expanded learning and engagement projects and new programming.