Summer Reading Lists
Plus my appearance on the BBC this week
I love getting book recommendations. There’s something special and personal about a recommendation from a friend, from someone who knows you and has given some thought to whether a particular book would appeal to you.
A couple of years ago a friend recommended Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift to me. It was one of those books on an embarrassingly long list that might be titled ‘Books I Should Probably Have Read By Now But Never Got Around To Because I Picked Up Another Jack Reacher.’ I read it because of the recommendation and the trusted source of that recommendation and I’ve rarely been so grateful to have done so. Mothering Sunday redefined for me what economy of phrasing could achieve in a novel and really made me think about the importance of what’s left unsaid. I think about that book often.
Looking around my bookshelves I see lots of books that are only there because someone raved about it to me. The Crow Road by Iain Banks, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. All have enriched and uplifted my reading life.
A couple of times a year, we hold an event for Caversham Writers called Bookshare Night. It’s a platform for members to share and recommend books to each other. From these meetings I have discovered authors new to me, such as Karl Ove Knausgaard, Yoko Ogawa and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It’s another way in which Caversham Writers has exposed me to stories and voices I might otherwise have missed, and I am a better person for it.
I also love it when the newspapers run their book recommendation lists, especially when authors I like are recommending books they’ve loved reading. Yes, I do want to know what Monica Ali and Joe Lycett are reading.
It’s that time of year when the papers start putting out their Summer Reading recommendations. A couple of weeks ago, the Chicago Sun-Times did just that. They recommended books by authors such as Isabel Allende, Andy Weir, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Maggie O'Farrell. There was just one problem.
Most of the books mentioned don’t exist.
Allende has never written a book called Tidewater Dreams and neither has anyone else. The Last Algorithm is not a book by Andy Weir.
So how did this happen? I’m sure you can guess, but let’s go back a few months to get the full context.
In March this year the Chicago Sun-Times laid off 20% of its staff.
Needing content for its Summer 2025 special edition, the paper hired a freelancer to compile a reading list.
Of course, the freelancer just used AI and didn’t check what it spat out.
Neither did the editors at the paper.
And so here we are, with holier-than-thou outrage all over the media and internet directed at the paper, and think-pieces opining on the End of Days failure of Generative AI to do what it’s supposed to do.
And most of them are missing the point. Because in this case, as in so many other use cases, Generative AI actually did exactly what it was designed to do.
The clue is right there in the name of the most popular AI tool, ChatGPT. These systems have all been designed from the ground up with the same objective: to provide a plausible-sounding response to the input provided.
Not correct. Not accurate. Not factual. Plausible-sounding. It’s a chat function based on predictive models that try to determine which pattern of words most resembles a human language response to a question.
The factual accuracy is a bolt-on. But if the right answer sounds less plausible than one it can fabricate from multiple other sources, then it won’t deliver it.
So yes, the newspaper that outsourced to the freelancer and the freelancer who outsourced to the AI were both various shades of lazy, unprofessional and unethical but don’t blame the AI for producing what it was designed to produce.
AI won’t blow up the world because it became sentient or because it doesn’t work properly. It’ll do it because a human still didn’t understand what it is and tried to use a hammer to change a lightbulb.
My Summer Reading
Three books I’m looking forward to reading this summer.
- . “Always ridiculous, often hilarious.” An alternative London in 1985, in which criminal gangs have muscled in on the literary market, kidnapping characters from works of fiction - and Jane Eyre is missing. Yes, I’m going back to the beginning with the first of the Thursday Next books, in preparation for the release of the eighth (and final?) book in the series later this year.
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill. Set in post-9/11 New York, this is a story of love, loss and belonging told through the unlikely lens of the city’s immigrant cricket community. I’ve been meaning to get around to this one for ages. Another one from the ‘BISPHRBNBNGATBIPUAJR’ pile (see above.)
Kill Them with Kindness by
. The ‘most original writer in Britain’ (Daily Express) returns with a mind-blowing, high-concept new novel. “Carver has created a highly original state-of-the-nation novel” —Literary Review.
That last one is published on June 19th and you can pre-order it from Alex at Fourbears Books. Look out for a special email over the weekend on this - I know many of you, like me, are fans of Will’s and you won’t want to miss this.
Right, now I want to know some of your recommendations. What are you looking forward to reading this summer? Let me know in the comments.
BBC Upload
My interview went out on last night’s show. You can listen back on BBC Sounds here, from around 1hr 50 minutes in. I’m after Kate Bush, which is a sentence I could’ve said at any time since about 1979.
This Week's Meeting
Writes & Bites - an in person social event!
We gathered at The Moderation in Caversham for our regular social meetup. I hadn’t been there in years, but kept hearing how good the food is and it didn’t disappoint. As well as the usual pub fare, they specialise in Thai and south-east Asian food. My nasi goreng was magnificent and I really shouldn’t have had the banana fritters to follow, but it was still within a week of my birthday so I’m just going to write it off as a special birthday treat.
As one member told me the next day: “It was great just chatting to people about writing and all sorts of things.” This event is very much about the ‘all sorts of things’ - it’s our opportunity to get to know each other a bit better outside of our actual writing.
Thanks to all for coming and making it such a splendid evening.
Next Week's Meeting
Writeshare Night - Read Your Work To The Group
Wednesday, June 4, 2025 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM BST
In this event members have the opportunity to read out their work to the rest of the group and get some instant feedback. You do not have to read anything out if joining this event, just listen and comment if you wish.
This event will be online via Zoom, register to attend on Meetup to get the link:
Free To Join, Free To Attend
As you know Caversham Writers is free to join and free to attend and I want it to remain so. That doesn’t mean it is free to run, though. I organise the group meetings on Meetup.com who have seen fit to double the fees paid by group organisers over the last year.
This has led to many groups shutting down or moving platform. I like to think of Caversham Writers as a local group with a global reach and I want us to remain open to voices from all over the world. Meetup provides that global reach so I intend to stay there, but would welcome any contributions toward the costs of running the group.
So if you enjoy this free newsletter and our weekly free events, please consider helping out by buying me a coffee at the link below.
Brilliant interview, Adrian. Thoroughly enjoyed listening to you. It's such good practice to practice talking about the group in these different public spaces. You can tell you're well versed at doing this now :)
Adrian what a great interview!!!