If you only read one book this year Writers, booksellers and critics pick titles to entice

According to new data from YouGov, 40% of British adults have not read a single book in the last year, with the median Briton having read or listened to three.

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In a world where there are so many other distractions and forms of entertainment to choose from, fewer and fewer people are getting stuck into books - yet lots of us would like to be reading more. So we asked authors, booksellers and critics to choose the book they think you should read this year - even if you only read one.

James Percival Everett

James was being hailed a modern classic before it even hit bookshops last year. The American novelist Percival Everett, the author of more than 30 published works, dared to take on the US cultural cornerstone Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - only this time from the perspective of the runaway enslaved man, Jim. Everett rescues James from the racial stereotypes of the original, restoring his proper name and humanity. He might not be free, but Everett gives him narrative agency and a pencil with which to write his own story. Don't worry if this is your first proper encounter with Huck. James has all the pace and adventure of the children's classic, but with adult wit, wisdom and furious intent. James is an important novel and also a magnificently enjoyable one. Handily, it is just out in paperback.

Lisa Allardice, the Guardian's chief books writer

A Life's Music Andrei Makine

A very short novel that contains multitudes. A young Russian composer flees Moscow, heading for Ukraine, to escape Stalin's purge of intellectuals in 1941. Then Russia's war with Nazi Germany begins and his life turns upside down. How will he survive? What reserves of character does he have at his disposal? Profound, moving, haunting - full of resonances that are more valid in today's fraught times. A mini-masterpiece.

William Boyd, novelist

Killing Floor Lee Child