Reading lists

Where to start reading Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley is a master of capturing the humanity of domestic lives. Here's where to begin with her short stories and novels.

A life well-written: Tessa Hadley's novels

Tessa Hadley is truly a writers' writer. For the past two decades, her short stories and novels have been admired by authors such as Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Hilary Mantel and Anne Enright. Hadley writes about the quietly devastating drama of the everyday: lost ambition and unfolding love affairs, cross-generational trauma and the small histories that repeat themselves. Her quintessentially English books perfectly capture familiar moments you'd never thought to focus on before.

With eight novels, among them newcomer Free Love, and three collections of short stories, there's plenty to get stuck into - and this is a good order to read them in.

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