Daisy Johnson was born in 1990. Her debut short story collection, Fen, was published by Cape and in the US by Graywolf. Her novel, Eggtooth (Cape), is due in 2018. She was the winner of the AM Heath Prize and the Harpers Bazaar short story prize. She has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Prize and the New Angle Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in the Boston Review and the Warwick Review and she also publishes poetry. Daisy currently lives in Oxford.
Helm (2025) Sarah Hall "Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself. She gets better with every word she writes."
The Ministry of Time (2024) Kaliane Bradley "I haven't enjoyed a book this much for a very long time. It's wonderful, joyful, intelligent and hilarious. I underlined as I read and felt a strong sadness at finishing because I could not read it again for the first time."
The Vaster Wilds (2023) Lauren Groff "Groff is a mastermind, a masterpiece creator, an intoxicating magician. I wait with impatience for every book and I am always surprised and delighted.The Vaster Wilds feels like her bravest yet, hallucinatory, divine, beyond belief but also entirely human."
Redder Days (2021) Sue Rainsford "A tangled, gnarled, wonderfully original, strange, beautiful beast of a book. I will be reading everything Rainsford ever writes."
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (2021) Cherie Jones "This book unfolds around the reader like ripples in water, it offers an unflinching vision of what it means to have a body and to fight to protect that body, it demands attention. These are characters' voices I will be hearing for a long time and a book I will be recommending to everyone."
The Harpy (2020) Megan Hunter "The Harpy is brilliant. Hunter imbues the everyday with apocalyptic unease. A deeply unsettling, excellent read."
Daddy (2020) Emma Cline "These stories live in the odd corners of the world, Cline's talent at uncovering the seedy and somehow bringing it to beautiful light is brilliant. These are understated gems."
Pew (2020) Catherine Lacey "I consumed Pew. It is the electric charge we need."
How to Pronounce Knife (2020) Souvankham Thammavongsa "These stories feel simple, but they move within you and it is impossible to let them go. They are sharp and vital. Thammavongsa is a master over the sentence."
The Glass Hotel (2020) Emily St John Mandel "No one can create beautiful, enmeshed, startlingly clever worlds the way Mandel does. A new novel by her is a cause for enormous, tumultuous celebration."
The Bass Rock (2020) Evie Wyld "Wyld is the most stupendous of writers, daring, heartfelt, explosive. The Bass Rock reminds us of all her power and brilliance, it thrums with an anger it is impossible not to feel."
Saltwater (2019) Jessica Andrews "This book is sublime. It dares to be different, to look in a different way. Andrews is not filling anyone's shoes, she is destroying the shoes and building them from scratch."
The Porpoise (2019) Mark Haddon "Mark Haddon cuts right down to the grittiness of humanity every time he writes. The Porpoise is a beautiful, unputdownable, ancient tangle with its own sweeping tides and dangerous depths."
Muscle (2019) Alan Trotter "Muscle unfolds like a series of Russian Dolls, each more Beckettian, winding and wonderful than the one before. Compelling enough to read in one gulping go."
The Water Cure (2018) Sophie Mackintosh "Eerie, electric, beautiful. It rushes you through to the end on a tide of tension and closely held panic. I loved this book."
