MY SIX BEST BOOKS

ADAM KAY, 38, is the former junior doctor who wrote the bestseller This Is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries Of A Junior Doctor. He has also written for Mrs Brown’s Boys and Mitchell & Webb. He plays the Hammersmith Apollo, London, on Sunday as part of his This Is Going To Hurt tour. adamkay.co.uk ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY

by David Sedaris

Abacus, £8.99 Sedaris is the premier observer of our world and its weirdnesses and this collection includes a description of Easter in a French class which is the funniest chapter of anything ever written. HEARTBURN

by Nora Ephron

Virago, £9.99 I had never read this until earlier this year. I’ve embarrassed myself on public transport reading it.

It is snortingly funny in its depiction of the death throes of a relationship. And it bursts with recipes. What more could you ask for? FREAKONOMICS

by Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner

Penguin, £9.99 I think this is the first popular non-fiction book that I read.

It’s designed for idiots like me and taught me that economics is both interesting and relevant. Each chapter asks a different question, such as why do drug dealers still live with their mums? FINGERSMITH

by Sarah Waters

Virago, £8.99 This is totally immersive with brilliantly drawn characters. It’s set in the 1860s in London and is a page-turning thriller while managing to be a tender love story. I think I saw it out in a day. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

by Maurice Sendak

Red Fox, £6.99 The definitive children’s book: perfect story; perfect writing; beautiful artwork; about a boy who gets sent to bed without supper and his bedroom turns into a fantastical jungle. You can still enjoy it as an adult. THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

by Mark Haddon

Vintage, £8.99 I’ve read this three or four times and I get something new from it every time. It’s a study of autism so we’re told the story by a factual narrator but, because of his lack of emotional understanding, it also makes him wonderfully unreliable.