What We Are Reading RN

Books = “The hot new accessory of 2019.” Apparently.

Last month, Bella Hadid was papped toting Stephen King’s The Outsider. She even used its 560 pages to hide her face from the paps while at Charles de Gaulle. Meanwhile, her sister, is reading what VOGUE dubbed as an of-course on the “must-read lists of philosophy nerds and French literature fiends for decades” – Albert Camus’s The Stranger.

Thanks to these two, isolated sightings, the New York Post called books "the hot new accessory of 2019.”

For many of us, though, they never left.

They’re the stuff our bedside tables are stacked with. Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity saw us survive breakup after breakup, and we’ve spent many a late night with only Joan Didion for company. Hunter S Thomson showed us what it was to be wild, like really wild, while Hanya Yanagihara ensured there would be no sleep until the final page was read. If Didion’s to be believed (and she is), books are at the heart of what makes us tick: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

In honour of national book day, we turned to those we spoke with in the last week - asking them what’s on their bookshelves and bedside tables, what they’re carrying with them on the daily.

@romancewasborn

Luke Sales, one half of Romance Was Born, is currently stuck on What Remains by Carol Radziwill, while his RWB partner, Anna Plunkett, is reading “How To Solve Our Human Problems by Kelsang Gyatso.”

Each are now in our wishlist (thanks guys).

We were curious, though, about the books they return to, time and time again.

For Sales, his forever go-to is a classic from childhood:

“Charlotte's Web by E.B White,” Sales tells us. “I love it because it’s a beautiful message, and there’s a new layer of meaning each time you read it.”

For Plunkett, it’s Dog Boy by Eva Hornung (now also on our list).

“It really captured my imagination ... I felt like I was there with the boy in the dog pack. I know this sounds weird but it was really beautiful.”

We hit up Insted We Smile’s Luke Stedman too.

Shop the look

@luke.stedman wears @instedwesmile

“My favourite book right now is the Beastie Boys Book. I also have the pleasure of having a scribble from Mike D himself. I have a man crush on him.”