A group of leading authors, including Kate Mosse, Ben Okri and Samantha Harvey, have been asked by the Guardian to nominate novels they believe should be taught in schools, as England and Wales enter a period of curriculum renewal for GCSE English. The exercise coincides with mounting concern about declining reading for pleasure among children and criticism that current GCSE set texts are narrow, outdated and dominated by male authors, prompting calls for the Department for Education to mandate more diverse and regularly refreshed reading lists.

The piece cites a 2025 report by End Sexism in Schools, Manopolies, which found 76% of students study JB Priestley's An Inspector Calls as their modern text (from 21 options) and 93% study either A Christmas Carol or The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as their 19th-century novel (from nine options), while only 5% of students study a female-authored text at GCSE. It also notes the National Literacy Trust's designation of 2026 as the National Year of Reading, following a 2025 low of 32.7% of eight-to-18-year-olds saying they enjoy reading in their free time, which has since risen to 36.1%. Authors' suggestions include Percival Everett's satirical novel The Trees, put forward by Kate Mosse as an example of a text that is both intellectually serious and genuinely entertaining for teenage readers.