Want to know what books Peter Florence recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Peter Florence's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
A dazzling Don Quixote for the modern age--an epic tour de force that is as much an homage to an immortal work of literature as it is to the quest for love and family, by Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a... more A dazzling Don Quixote for the modern age--an epic tour de force that is as much an homage to an immortal work of literature as it is to the quest for love and family, by Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where "Anything-Can-Happen." Meanwhile, his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.
Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirize the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of Rushdie's work, the fully realized lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction. less 
Peter FlorenceIt’s a really full-on, absolutely uncompromising maximalist novel. It’s very entertaining, clever and politically acute. (Source)
See more recommendations for this book...
2
A contemporary twist on the Odyssey, An Orchestra of Minorities is narrated by the chi, or spirit of a young poultry farmer named Chinonso. His life is set off course when he sees a woman who is about to jump off a bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, he hurls two of his prized chickens off the bridge. The woman, Ndali, is stopped in her tracks.
Chinonso and Ndali fall in love but she is from an educated and wealthy family. When her family objects to the union on the grounds that he is not her social equal, he sells most of his possessions to attend college in Cyprus. But... more A contemporary twist on the Odyssey, An Orchestra of Minorities is narrated by the chi, or spirit of a young poultry farmer named Chinonso. His life is set off course when he sees a woman who is about to jump off a bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, he hurls two of his prized chickens off the bridge. The woman, Ndali, is stopped in her tracks.
Chinonso and Ndali fall in love but she is from an educated and wealthy family. When her family objects to the union on the grounds that he is not her social equal, he sells most of his possessions to attend college in Cyprus. But when he arrives in Cyprus, he discovers that he has been utterly duped by the young Nigerian who has made the arrangements for him. Penniless, homeless, we watch as he gets further and further away from his dream and from home. less Peter FlorenceThe wonder of this book is that it takes this animating spirit guardian narrator and makes it seem completely natural. Obioma inducts you into this culture of this story with this heart-rending, beautiful hero and his quest and makes it completely immersive. (Source)
See more recommendations for this book...
3
Bernardine Evaristo | 4.51
From one of Britain's most celebrated writers of color, Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of post-Brexit Britain, as well as looking back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.
The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her Black lesbian identity; her old friend Shirley is... more From one of Britain's most celebrated writers of color, Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of post-Brexit Britain, as well as looking back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.
The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her Black lesbian identity; her old friend Shirley is a teacher, jaded after decades of work in London's funding-deprived schools; Carole, one of Shirley's former students, is a successful investment banker; Carole's mother Bummi works as a cleaner and worries about her daughter's lack of rootedness despite her obvious achievements. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class.
Sparklingly witty and filled with emotion, centering voices we often see othered, and written in an innovative fast-moving form that borrows technique from poetry, Girl, Woman, Other is a polyphonic and richly textured social novel that shows a side of Britain we rarely see, one that reminds us of all that connects us to our neighbors, even in times when we are encouraged to be split apart. less Peter FlorenceI cannot imagine anyone not enjoying this novel. As an author she possesses a prolific voice; she’s got 12 voices, all of which are distinct and engaging and vulnerable in different ways and utterly compelling. (Source)
See more recommendations for this book...
4
An intensely powerful new novel from the best-selling author of The Bastard of Istanbul and Honour
'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'
For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight... more An intensely powerful new novel from the best-selling author of The Bastard of Istanbul and Honour
'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'
For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her. . . less 
Nicola SturgeonThis is the book I’m most looking forward to over the next few weeks. @Elif_Safak is one of my favourite contemporary writers and this is a brilliant review in @FT - “10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World - lush, rich, lucid” https://t.co/jNww8EtC7e (Source)
Jonny GellerThis beautiful book by the inspiring Elif Shafak is published today.
Please:
Buy it. Read it. Recommend it.
You won’t regret it! https://t.co/UgATb1Ihre (Source)
Peter FlorenceI’m intrigued by the fact that this is a second or third language; she seems to have absolute control of the poetry, and at the same time the ability to conjure characters who, in a way, absolutely don’t feel at all like characters. They feel like people. It’s a great trick of fiction, and she does it beautifully. (Source)
See more recommendations for this book...
5
LATTICING one cherry pie after another, an Ohio housewife tries to bridge the gaps between reality and the torrent of meaningless info that is the United States of America. She worries about her children, her dead parents, African elephants, the bedroom rituals of “happy couples”, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and how to hatch an abandoned wood pigeon egg. Is there some trick to surviving survivalists? School shootings? Medical debts? Franks ’n’ beans?
A scorching indictment of America’s barbarity, past and present, and a lament for the way we are sleepwalking into environmental... more LATTICING one cherry pie after another, an Ohio housewife tries to bridge the gaps between reality and the torrent of meaningless info that is the United States of America. She worries about her children, her dead parents, African elephants, the bedroom rituals of “happy couples”, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and how to hatch an abandoned wood pigeon egg. Is there some trick to surviving survivalists? School shootings? Medical debts? Franks ’n’ beans?
A scorching indictment of America’s barbarity, past and present, and a lament for the way we are sleepwalking into environmental disaster, Ducks, Newburyport is a heresy, a wonder—and a revolution in the novel.
It’s also very, very funny. less 
Meena Kandasamy@samjordison She wrote a fabulous brilliant book that centered motherhood. The one line is not problematic becoz of what she says as an author. On the contrary I feel that it is the system that does this to mothers, prevents them from the public domain-and instils this preception among people (Source)
Peter FlorenceIt’s a fantastic comic riff that feels a lot like an updated, wisecracking version of James Joyce’s Molly Bloom. You get the sense of a whole life and a real imagination at work. And although it’s a thousand pages, you read it with energy and pace and verve. It’s just a great ride. Everybody I have given it to has loved it. (Source)
See more recommendations for this book...
6
In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades.
When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.
With The Testaments, the wait is over.
Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
"Dear... more In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades.
When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.
With The Testaments, the wait is over.
Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
"Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in." --Margaret Atwood less 
Guy KawasakiI love @MargaretAtwood’s message and appreciate her efforts to prevent the end of the world. Her latest book is The Testaments, sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. 📕
Read it and spread its message to help prevent Making America Gilead again. PODCAST 🎧 https://t.co/9wBq98MWf0 https://t.co/W950dsLLN6 (Source)
Mary BurkeyObviously the book is totally fascinating as a print book. What happened with the audiobook is that because of the Netflix adaptation, a lot of the actors who were in the Netflix program were used for the audiobook production. (Source)
Peter FlorenceIt is a completely standalone, independent novel. If you read The Handmaid’s Tale, it will satisfy some of your need for understanding what happened next. If you haven’t—and incredibly, there are people who haven’t read it—it just gives you an extremely savage and exhilarating look at contemporary life and its most alarming manifestations. (Source)
See more recommendations for this book...
Don't have time to read Peter Florence's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
