Jeffrey Archer

The Taking of Pelham 123

by John Godey

“John Godey published the novel in 1973 and Joseph Sargent filmed it the following year with Walter Matthau. What I like about Pelham 123 is that the train is always moving. You feel the tension of movement and action. You realise that Transit Police Lieutenant Zachary Garber—played brilliantly by Walter Matthau in the movie—is the good guy, and he is trying to solve the problem.” — via Interview, July 2026

Catch Me If You Can

The True Story of a Real Fake

by Frank Abagnale & with Stan Redding

“What we have reached, with modern books and modern films, is a stage where the public wants the bad guy to win. It becomes almost farcical. Catch Me If You Can is the perfect example. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank Abagnale, and you want him to win, despite the fact that Tom Hanks, who plays the FBI agent chasing him, is one of the nicest people on earth. That is his problem. He is one of the nicest people on earth.” — via Interview, July 2026

Bad Blood

Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

by John Carreyrou

“Bad Blood is the book you hand to anyone who tells you ‘Surely someone would have spotted it?’ Elizabeth Holmes convinced some of the most powerful people in America that she had invented a machine that could run hundreds of medical tests from a single drop of blood. She hadn’t. The machine didn’t work. And by the time the truth emerged, she had raised nearly a billion dollars.” — via Interview, July 2026

The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

“Mark Twain is, of course, a genius. His short stories are probably better than his novels, and his quips are probably even better than his short stories. His wonderful comment about how “when I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years” is just brilliant.” — via Interview, July 2026

Goldfinger

by Ian Fleming

“When I was a young man, just before I went up to Oxford, I was in a store in Lymington in Hampshire, and I saw this book for sixpence, second-hand, called Goldfinger. That was my first introduction to Ian Fleming. Wow, did I love it. I loved his hero. I loved his villains. Auric Goldfinger was absolutely wonderful, and Oddjob was the worst, wasn’t he? You were just fascinated by him.” — via Interview, July 2026