The best mixtapes in fiction

Have you ever wanted to listen to a song mentioned in a novel? Now you can enjoy fictional mixtapes, as authors have begun creating their characters playlists for their readers to listen to

The Guardian is hosting two events with David Nicholls, the author of One Day, in Manchester 1 October and Edinburgh 2 OctoberDavid Nicholls: Six Songs of Me list

It may not be the most obvious reaction, granted, but my first thought when hearing news that David Nicholls had written Us, his follow-up to his bestselling novel One Day, wasnt about his knack for unputdownability or his enviable ability to write novels that cry out to be adapted into blockbuster movies. No my first thought was: Ooh, I wonder if itll have a good mixtape.

Inspired by the compilation tapes his character Emma Morley makes for Dexter Mayhew in One Day, author Nicholls decided to put together a full playlist of the mixtapes, imagining what other tracks Emma (who has far better taste than Dexter) would have included.

Youve got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention and then youve got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you cant have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you cant have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless youve done the whole thing in pairs and... oh, there are loads of rules.

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