What Spectator writers read on their summer holidays

The flights are booked, the passports are dusted down and it’s time to pack. But which books deserve space in your suitcase? Here, Spectator writers share their all-time favourite summer holiday reads…

Matthew Parris

My all-time favourite re-read at any time of year is Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey. A very short novel with the kind of perfection a geometrical proof may command, it starts with the death of a group of travellers crossing a Peruvian rope bridge who are linked only by the fact that they were on the bridge when it snapped, and traces the life of each up until that point. Wilder’s quest is to discover whether there exists any divine plan.

Toby Young

For pure escapism, I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes is hard to beat. Hayes co-wrote Mad Max, but this is even better. I’m looking forward to his follow-up The Year of the Locust, due in November.