Basket: 
Did you listen to the hit parade when younger? Knowing the top twenty was an expectation in my youth, Sunday evening would be spent laying next the radio, sometimes with cassette recorder at hand for a favourite song, waiting for the countdown.
I felt as Reader in Residence I should offer up my top twenty books that feature Teesside. This top twenty is in no particular order. What I have tried the do is suggest a selection of books in various genre and forms so that everyone can find something that interests them.
Fiction
Fiona Erskine (2025) Losing Control
Carmen Marcus (2017) How Saints Die
Union Street (1982) Pat Barker
Deborah Young (2025) Dear Future Me
Glen James Brown (2018) Ironopolis
Steph McGovern (2025) Deadline
A B Finlayson (2024) Rock Zombie
Mark Hadlett (2026) Highwayman
Short Stories
Speaking for Melos (2026) Masimba Musodza
Crossing the Tees: the ninth short story anthology (2026)
Poetry
Bob Beagrie (2016) Leasungspell
F E Birch (2025) Criminal Poetry
Junior
Mike Edwards (2025) Riverskin
Theresa Tomlinson (1989) The Water Cat
Young Adult
Andrew S French (2022) Ella and the Elementals
Biography
Bob Mortimer (2021) And Away… The Autobiography
Patrick Durkin (2020) The Most Famous Man on Marsh Road featuring the art of Sean Durkin
Non-fiction
Steel River: Walking the Tees – A Journey Through Nature in a Human World
Patrick Brennan (2007) The Munitionettes: a history of women’s football in North East England during the Great War
Florence Bell (1909) At the Works
