One Day author Nicholls delivers a quiet and unconventional post-pandemic tale in this 2024 Summer Reading Guide selection about two lonely middle-aged people falling in love as they trek through the English countryside. Geography teacher Michael and copyeditor Marnie, both still hurting in the aftermath of unhappy marriages that ended, meet for a group walk across the moors arranged by a bossy mutual friend. No one thinks they have anything in common—and yet when thrown together on the trail, they discover the sort of companionship they never dreamed they’d find again. Grammar nerds and Anglophiles will find a special pleasure in this bittersweet work of contemporary fiction that made me laugh so hard I shook the whole couch.