What marketing’s biggest bookworms are reading this summer (part 1)

Millions of these millions are culture makers and culture obsessives, devouring the best from the worlds of art, music, film and stage to metabolize through their own creative outputs. And yet, all too often, reading lists pumped out by the industry focus on (with a few glowing exceptions) derivative pop science and second-rate airport business books.

No more! This summer, we’ve scoured the marketing biz high and low for its truest bookworms to ask them what books they’re finding truly enlightening right now. No snobbiness here: all genres are welcome, with one exception – nothing crap.

So get a pen and paper and chart a course to your local independent bookstore.

Rishi Dastidar, poet and brand writer: “Two recent novels have lingered with me since first reading them this spring. Picked up on a whim because of its neon green cover, Louise Hegarty’s debut Fair Play purports to be a straightforward murder mystery, with the usual cosy crime trappings, but rapidly becomes something unexpectedly playful yet unsettlingly profound. I’ve been pressing it on people unprompted for what it says about the nature of friendships and how we can’t really ever know other people, even though we must try.

“The other is Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, a series of pitch-perfect observations about the surface trappings – and the sense of being trapped – of the lives of two digital nomads in Berlin in the early 2010s. Latronico’s eye for the details of this period, especially how work is done through screens that flatten all, is superb. It was nominated for the International Booker Prize 2025 and deservedly so.

“And an oldie. While at my parents’ place a few weeks ago, I chanced upon Rob Long’s Conversations with My Agent, which I hadn’t read for 20 years. Long is a scriptwriter and TV producer who worked on Cheers towards the end of its run. CWMA details what happened next and how he navigated the treacherous whirl of studios and networks to get a new project off the ground. It remains one of the best guides to making any form of ‘content’ and a reminder as to how much luck plays an outsized part in that.”

Nicole Allan, new business & marketing director, MiMedia: “If you’re drawn to stories that explore the relationships between friends and families, the kind that grow, strain and evolve over time, then I’d absolutely recommend the Neapolitan quartet by Elena Ferrante. We’re taken to 1950s Italy, following the lives of Elena and Lila from childhood to old age. It’s an impeccable account of the intensity that can be found in close female friendships. Set mainly in a poor neighborhood near Naples, the series considers whether people can, or indeed should, escape the confines of their hometown and what happens to the friends that are left behind when they do.

“Next is Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles, which over five books details the intimate lives of three generations of the Cazalet family; from the shadow of the outbreak of WW2 to 1950s post-war Britain. Loosely based on Howard’s own life, the books explore so many aspects of familial relationships, from the weight of family expectations to the lasting impacts of war beyond loss and grief.

“Finally, I’m two books into Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, which speaks to chosen families. Naive, young Mary Ann Singleton makes the impulsive decision to live in a boarding house in San Francisco and her eyes are quickly opened to the adventures this city has to offer in the 1970s. With a cast of largely LGBTQ+ characters, it’s incredibly funny with a lot of heart.”

Ant Melder, creative partner, Cocogun: “What a joy to be asked to recommend a few books. Wildly, bafflingly and heartbreakingly, I often come across creatives who don’t read. For my money, the industry, the world, the human race are better when we read more. If I could press just one book into your hands, it’d be All Fours by Miranda July. It’s about a lady standing at a peri-menopausal life crossroads. It will resonate with anyone grappling with the age-old existential questions (Who the fuck actually am I? What kind of life do I want for myself?). A sublime blend of poignant, inspirational, shocking, mindbending and hilarious: life-changing stuff.

“The Bee Sting by Paul Murray blew my mind and broke my heart. He perfectly captures both the pain/confusion/sad chaos of being a teenager and the adult thing of pretending to be on top of everything, but actually having close to zero idea about what the f**k you’re doing.

“I also recently loved Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, a coming-of-age story about an alien that is (of course!) actually about what it means to be human. Limberlost by Robbie Arnott is a truly gorgeous epic set in Tasmania. Someone To Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg is a brilliant collection of funny, moving, silly short stories. My First Book by Honor Levy serves up radical truths through a disquieting and provocative Gen Z lens. ‘Breaking the rules is the only hope we have,’ she says. And My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh is a twisted yet unforgettable morality tale with an anti-hero as weirdly charismatic as Patrick Bateman.

“Talking of anti-heroes, let me give a quick shout out to John Self, the poignantly misguided plonker who narrates Martin Amis’s all-time classic Money. For lovers of writing with literary fireworks, ideas and soul, this tragic masterclass of picaresque anti-capitalism is the shiz.”

Jo West, planning and buying director, Posterscope: “Reading, especially fiction, keeps me sane and (relatively) balanced when the hecticness of the day-to-day gets too much. I’m an absolute luddite, eschewing the Kindle in favor of physical books. Recent highlights include Maggie O’Farrell’s incredible The Marriage Portrait, set in 16th-century Italy, which led me to reappraise my dislike of historical fiction.

“Then, Sandwich by Catherine Newman is a brilliantly funny and touching account of a multi-generational summer holiday in New England. And One Ukrainian Summer, by Viv Groskop. It’s a vivid depiction of a 20-year-old British student’s year in Russia and Ukraine. A memoir of her own experiences in the early 90s, it’s a vivid depiction of life just after the fall of the Iron Curtain. I devoured it in one sitting.”

Graeme Fraser, B2B marketing consultant: “I tend to avoid reading anything to do with AI, but Jungle House by Julianne Pachio threw me a bit. A mystery set in an AI-controlled house in an unnamed South American country, Pachio approaches AI as if it were human. There are meltdowns, sociopathy, depression and other very human traits imbued in the ‘devices.’ It made me think about AI in a slightly different light.

“All My Precious Madness by Mark Bowles is a darkly funny book about a man continually disappointed in other men, featuring a marketing/business bro character who is so deliciously on the nose. It paints a portrait, through this character, of how the outside world might view our profession. Pretty, it ain’t – note a particularly funny passage on the term ‘value proposition’ that might curl your toes.

“Jessie Greengrass’s The High House explores resilience in the face of environmental catastrophe. It does a fantastic job of delivering a grounded reality as well as the ordinariness of life in extreme conditions.

“Then there’s I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart. Set during the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea, Pickhart writes strong characters from activists to former KGB agents who play the piano on top of buses.

“Or Percival Everitt: he just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for James (which is very good), but it’s worth exploring the back catalog. The Trees would be a good start: a murder investigation opens up the full horror of America’s violent past. A satire on racial justice in the US, it’s very good and very funny.

“Finally, some non-fiction that reads like a Le Carré novel? Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll is the book I’ve recommended the most in the last 12 months. It’s the story of how the IRA came very close to killing Margaret Thatcher in the 1984 Brighton Bombing and the subsequent manhunt. A truly compelling read.”

Matthew Kilgour, global strategy director, Fst: “Like any self-respecting strategist with a goopy brain fractured by years of relentless task hopping and rabbit-holing, I’m reading several books at once. Top of the pile is What In Me Is Dark by Orlando Reade. It covers how Milton’s Paradise Lost has influenced writers and thinkers for 350 years. Reade wears his smarts very lightly: the book is a borderline romp. Each chapter shows the logic and spirit of the poem, interpolating the lives and work of figures from Thomas Jefferson via the Wordsworths to Malcolm X. It’s very smart and very funny. At one point, Reade describes Satan and Beelzebub suffering eternally in the fiery lake as ‘two lizards in a jacuzzi.’

“Next on the pile is Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess. It concerns an aging gay writer (modelled on WS Maugham), asked to help canonize the recently deceased Pope, who happens to be his brother-in-law. It’s full of booze and sex and misadventure and deals with the way individual faith functions in the face of exclusion. Fundamentally, it’s about deciding what constitutes good and evil. It also features an opening hook for the ages: ‘It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.’

“Can I crowbar in a lesson here for marketers? Oh, no doubt. Reade’s book takes its title from early in book one of Paradise Lost, ‘What is dark within me, illumine.’ Which is sort of the job, isn’t it? Understand what makes us all tick.”

If you’re a proper bookworm who works in marketing who’d like to contribute to future editions, email sam[dot]anderson[at]thedrum[dot]com.