The Best Fiction Books

We're looking forward to the announcement of this year's Booker Prize winner in November. But until then, perhaps you'd like to work your way through the backlist of Booker Prize-winning novels from the last twenty years?

Another year, another summer stretching out before us... another reading dilemma? Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn offers a succinct round-up of the novels that should be on your radar in the summer of 2024: highly anticipated works of fiction from well-known literary figures and 'breakout' books that have quickly amassed significant critical attention – to guide you on your way.  See all our best novels of 2024 recommendations

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually since 1901 and remains one of the most prestigious prizes a writer can aspire to. It's also been consistently international, with many novelists and writers from around the globe winning the award for books written in an array of languages. Not all are accessible, and picking out which ones to read can be a tough call. To help, here's our list of books by winners of the Nobel literature prize that have been recommended on Five Books.

The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction is awarded annually to "outstanding novels and collections of short stories, first published in the UK or Ireland, that illuminate major social and political themes, present or past, through the art of narrative."

Life in an academic institution can be a curiously intense experience. As a result, the hot-house atmosphere of a university campus or boarding school presents a fitting backdrop for novels exploring ambition, power dynamics, crushes, and sexual crises. Here, we've pulled together a list of campus novels that have been recommended on Five Books over the years, via our interviews with literary scholars, bestselling authors and book prize judges.

By telling alternative histories, we can run thought experiments that shed new light on our own timeline. ‘Master of alternate history’ Harry Turtledove talks us through his five favourites - and considers why alternate history pre-dates conventional sci fi, why some historical changes make for better drama than others, and how the micro-histories of our own lives are radically shaped by chance.

Joining a book discussion group is a great way to meet fellow book-lovers—but one of the trickiest things can be deciding which books you should tackle together. Here are our suggestions: recently published books that should appeal to a broad range of readers—and which will offer your book club plenty to discuss over a glass of wine.

Some of the best novels ever written are also available in beautiful editions. Here we've selected five of our favourites, from the Jane Austen novel that many critics consider her best work to the novel of small-town provincial life that is highly rated by many philosophers.

Realistic fiction depicts situations that could happen in real life, with authentic characters who react in a believable way.

The story of America is not one of a manageable unified nation, says novelist and critic David Hering. It may, however, be the story of America's dream — which is why many of the best American novels have a distinctly dreamlike quality. He picks out five of the best American novels of the 20th century, from 1905 through to 1987.