The best literary fiction books to read right now, recommended by the experts

Why read this: A friendship begins to fracture under the quiet pressures of grief, failure and time. As Edmund Putnam withdraws following personal and professional upheaval, Laura Miller is left to reckon with her own precarious life while trying to pull him back. Set between the fading world of a literary magazine and long evenings in a Thames-side pub, this is a precise, unsparing study of loyalty, disillusionment and the fragile structures that hold us together. Selected by BBC Culture as one of the most anticipated books of 2026.

If you're looking for: Friendship, grief, literary satire, emotional precision, dark humour. 

Great for fans of: Rachel Cusk, Claire Keegan, Deborah Levy.

What the experts think: ‘Outstandingly brilliant’ – Claire-Louise Bennett. 'I love this book, and am awed by Riley's accomplishment' – Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent.

Why read this: This is the third book from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain and is just as emotionally rich and beautifully written as his earlier works. When John-Calum Macleod goes back to the Isle of Harris, he finds himself caught between his deeply rooted, religious father and his freer, more questioning sense of self. As tensions simmer within family and community, Stuart paints a vivid portrait of love, repression, and identity.

If you’re looking for: Literary fiction, books with a strong sense of place, LGBQTIA+ themes, lyrical writing.

Great for fans of: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart.

What the experts say: 'John of John has the emotional range and sense of sympathy of his earlier books, but this book is special, it has an urgency, an immediacy, a brilliant sense of place, the drama of fierce emotion repressed, concealed and volcanically exposed.' – Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island. 

Why read this: A love story shaped as much by absence as presence, Almost Life follows two women across decades of near-misses and charged reunions. Beginning in 1970s Paris, Millwood Hargrave builds a sensual, restless narrative about the lives we defer and the selves we never quite inhabit. Erica is a student, relishing her first summer abroad before beginning university at home in England. Laure is studying for her Ph.D. at the Sorbonne, drinking and smoking far too much, and sleeping with a married woman. When they meet on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur, they form an undeniable connection that will determine the course of their lives – almost. This is a novel that asks what it means to choose, and what it costs not to.

If you’re looking for: Queer love stories, missed chances, sensual prose, European settings, fate and choice, emotional intensity.

Great for fans of: One Day by David Nicholls, Ann Patchett, Colm Tóibín.

What the experts say: ‘A heart-rending tale of missed chances’ – Douglas Stuart. ‘Immersive, sensual, beautiful’ – Marian Keyes.

Why read this: Kawakami turns her unflinching gaze to adolescence and survival in 1990s Tokyo, charting the volatile bond between a teenager, Hana, and an older woman, Kimiko, who appears into her life. Together they set up Lemon, a bar that becomes a haven: a job, friends, the promise of money and security. But what begins as a story of possibility darkens into something more destabilising. This is a novel less interested in redemption than in the textures of hope, and how easily it is exploited.

If you’re looking for: Literary fiction, female friendship, Japanese fiction, class and inequality, dark coming-of-age stories, moody crime, Japanese noir.

Great for fans of: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, Breaking Bad.

What the experts say: ‘My heart felt very tender reading this. Astonishing Kawakami, as always’ – Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face. ‘I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami’ – Haruki Murakami.

Why read this: This is a devastating and beautiful exploration of sisterhood. The three Ryan sisters are all together at their family's Long Island house for the first time in years. Each brings with them a secret. Cait still feels guilty for her role in a boat accident two decades earlier, an accident that drove their brother to suicide. Alice's career, and marriage, are under threat. And Maggie is finally bringing the woman she loves home to meet her devoutly Catholic mother. As they prepare for Thanksgiving dinner, old tensions boil over and new truths surface. 

If you’re looking for: Family drama, dysfunctional dynamics, sibling rivalry, a book club read.

Great for fans of: Clare Lombardo, Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors, Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano,The Wedding People by Alison Espach.

What the experts say: 'The Irish Goodbye has it all: a lovable cast of complex characters; forbidden affairs; a stately, crumbling beach house; a doomed sailboat; long-suppressed family secrets; and one pressure-cooker of a holiday weekend.' – Amy Shearn, author of The Mermaid of Brooklyn.

Why read this: It's been two years since our last visit to the cosy, time-bending world of the Funiculi Funicula café, where a single cup of coffee offers the chance to revisit the past. In this sixth instalment of the multimillion-copy bestselling series, Toshikazu Kawaguchi introduces four new visitors, each carrying regrets, questions, or unspoken love. As they step back in time – bound by the café’s unyielding rules – their stories unfold with quiet poignancy. Gentle, reflective, and deeply comforting, this is a reminder of how small moments can change everything.

If you’re looking for: Healing fiction, time travel, reflective reads, gentle escapism, Japanese books in translation.

Great for fans of: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa.

Why read this: In these finely wrought stories, Tóibín maps the emotional terrain of exile, memory and return. A woman in Galway hears of the death of her son in the First World War. An Irishman seeks anonymity in Barcelona, haunted by crimes he has committed. A man goes to Dublin from Enniscorthy to implore the Minister for Health for a special favour. A young woman is pregnant during the Spanish Civil War. An undocumented worker finds himself living an illegal life and must leave San Francisco, and his child, after thirty years in America. This is fiction that trusts in suggestion, in the weight of small gestures, and in the enduring pull of home.

If you’re looking for: Short stories, exile and belonging, Irish literary fiction.

Great for fans of: Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín, Alice Munro.

Why read this: Exquisite writing and an increasing sense of unease combine to create a sinister, chilling story, based on Welsh folklore. When Carwyn discovers a buried prehistoric ruin in one of the fields on his land, his curiosity quickly descends into obsession. As the harsh winter closes in, his wife, Rhian, finds herself alone with her increasingly peculiar husband, and the mountains, and the looming megalithic stones.

If you’re looking for: Literary fiction/horror crossover, books based on folklore, rural isolated setting, books with a growing sense of dread.

Great for fans of: Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller, The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley.

What the experts say: 'Witty, tender, ultimately terrifying. Evocative and deftly done; The Hill in the Dark Grove is a book of echoes, haunted by the sheer vastness of time and landscape, and how they enact upon us and the stories we tell.' – Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies.

Why read this: This is a stunning story of devotion and sacrifice. David is young, handsome, charismatic and sworn to celibacy. He is freshly ordained, and about to return to England to begin life as a priest. In London, Margaret is entangled in an impossible love affair. Committed to living on her own terms without sacrificing her faith, she becomes drawn to a women’s movement challenging the archaic rules of the Church. When their lives are thrown together at a Catholic college in a quiet village, an undeniable connection forms between them.

If you’re looking for: A love story, faith, complex and compelling characters.

Great for fans of: Possession by A S Byatt, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, Atonement by Ian McEwan, Graham Greene.

What the experts say: 'It’s a rare pleasure to read this novel' – Sarah Moss, author of Ripeness.

Why read this: Beginning with a foundling on a windswept Irish shore, Carr’s novel unfolds into a rich portrait of community, rivalry and belonging. It takes us to Ireland's west coat in the 1970s, where a baby is found alone on the beach. Adopted by fisherman Ambrose Bonnar, the boy captivates Bonnar's family and the close-knit town immediately, through love, worry and envy. Set over twenty years, this is a tale of ordinary lives made extraordinary, and a quiet community attempting to adapt in a fast-changing world.

If you’re looking for: Irish settings, community dynamics, found family, lyrical realism, generational tension.

Great for fans of: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

What the experts say: ‘Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment’ - Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses.

Why read this: A dark, unsettling exploration of fandom and possession, Holy Boy pushes the logic of devotion to its most extreme conclusion. Yosep is a K-pop idol with millions of adoring fans. But for four of them, a poster on the wall just won't cut it. They have a plan – a perfect, foolproof plan – to get their idol all to themselves. Kidnapping Yosep seemed like the ultimate act of love. But inside a secluded mansion, plagued by paranoia and with their grip on reality slowly loosening, the women use increasingly disturbing strategies to keep Yosep in their possession. 

If you’re looking for: Psychological tension, obsessive fandom, claustrophobic settings, moral ambiguity, contemporary Korean fiction.

Great for fans of: Butter by Asako Yuzuki, Strange Pictures by Uketsu.

Why read this: Maggie, Harley and Róise are friends on the brink: of triumph, catastrophe, or maybe just finally growing up. Their crumbling Belfast house share has been witness to their roaring twenties, but now fault-lines are beginning to show. The three girls are still grieving the tragic death of their friend, Lydia, whose room remains untouched. Their last big fight hangs heavy over their heads, unspoken since the accident. And now they are all beginning to unravel.

If you’re looking for: Female friendship, sharp dialogue, contemporary Irish fiction.

Great for fans of: Dolly Alderton, Eliza Clark, Naoise Dolan, Miranda July.

What the experts say: 'Raucous, sexy and f*cking hilarious. A heady mix of Michael Magee's Close to Home and Lena Dunham's Girls. Everybody should read this book.' ⁠– Aimée Walsh, author of Exile.

Why read this: Stonex blends literary sensitivity with the momentum of a revenge narrative, creating a novel as concerned with grief as with justice. In January 1989, Birdie learns that Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, has been released, and leaves immediately for London with a plan and a gun. This new novel from Emma Stonex, author of The Sunday Times bestseller The Lamplighters, is a gripping cat-and-mouse chase that delves into the psychological depths of grief and retribution, blurring the line between victim and perpetrator.

If you’re looking for: Literary thriller, grief and revenge, shifting perspectives, coastal settings, moral complexity.

Great for fans of: The Hunter by Tana French, The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex.

What the experts say: ‘Bruising and beautiful’ – Rosie Walsh.  A brilliantly accomplished story of fractured lives and the long-term reverberations of violent crime, The Sunshine Man is both poetic and fiendishly gripping. Stonex's prose is bruising and beautiful.' – Rosie Walsh, author of The Man Who Didn't Call.

Why read this: Days of Light is the new novel from the author of The End We Start From. It follows Ivy, a young woman whose life is changed forever when her brother Joseph drowns near their family home. At his funeral, she meets the man she will marry and the woman she will love, setting the course for a life marked by unconventional choices. Spanning from 1938, through World War II, and into the twenty-first century, the novel traces Ivy's journey in a world shaped by art, love, and the search for meaning.

If you’re looking for: Lyrical prose, nonlinear structure, love across time, Bloomsbury influence, reflective fiction.

Great for fans of: Virginia Woolf, The Hours by Michael Cunningham, Mother Sunday by Graham Swift.

What the experts say: ‘Sublime. Wielding tremendous emotional power, it is a novel that is both raw and reverent’ – Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites.

Why read this: Two competing stories – and genres – combine to peel back the nature of grief in this startlingly original debut novel. When Benjamin dies at his own birthday party, Abigail's world is quite literally split in two. On one side, she attempts to grasp the reality of her brother's death, while on the other everything is not quite what it seems: an eminent detective has arrived to track down the murderer, and there's suddenly a butler, a gardener and a locked-room mystery where everyone is a suspect. Clever without being cold, it balances structural playfulness with genuine emotional weight.

If you’re looking for: Experimental fiction, genre subversion, philosophical themes, dual realities.

Great for fans of: Agatha Christie, How to Be Both by Ali Smith, Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton. 

What the experts say: 'Clever, confident, and always surprising, a mystery story that ingeniously escapes the locked room of the genre to take on the biggest questions of life and death.'  – Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting.

Why read this: In this sweeping novel, the events of World War Two shatter the Alterman family, scattering them across multiple continents and fractured possibilities. Stuart Nadler creates a prismatic narrative: each family member lives an isolated future, yet all remain bound by a shared, traumatic past. The story moves with a restless intelligence between Vienna, Montreal, and New York, exploring how grief reshapes reality and how the ghosts of what might have been haunt the lives we lead. This is a profound and moving study of loss, memory, and the human capacity for hope.

If you’re looking for: Multigenerational fiction, parallel lives, World War Two novels.

Great for fans of: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

What the experts say: ‘Nadler is a genius’ – Sabrina Orah Mark. ‘An astonishing new height’ – Claire Vaye Watkins.

Why read this: Schweblin’s stories are lean, unsettling and exacting, turning ordinary moments into scenes of dread, estrangement and revelation. Whether it's a mother surfacing from a lake after seeing something awful yet alluring, or a father haunted by a moment of distraction, Schweblin’s work explores the sinister undercurrents of everyday life. Across these six pieces, she explores the fragility of daily life – motherhood, loneliness, migration, despair – with a cool intensity that makes each disturbance feel both uncanny and recognisable.

If you’re looking for: Uncanny fiction, short stories, psychological tension, unsettling domesticity, dark literary fiction, compressed prose.

Great for fans of: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado, Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez.

What the experts say: ‘Just stellar - extreme, uncanny and beautifully controlled.' – Anne Enright, author of The Wren, The Wren.

Why read this: Everett’s reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is both a brilliant literary intervention and a gripping novel in its own right. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2025 and Fiction Book of the Year at The British Book Awards. After escaping his slave owner’s plantation on The Mississippi River in 1861, James holes up on nearby Jackson Island, trying to formulate a plan to ensure his and his family’s freedom. Meeting Huck, a boy running from his own troubled past, the pair start a treacherous journey up the river in the hope of salvation. Fierce, funny and devastating.

If you’re looking for: Satirical literary fiction, classic retelling, historical fiction, dark humour.

Great for fans of: Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders.

What the experts say: ‘Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them’ – Roddy Doyle. ‘A powerful, necessary corrective’ – Ann Patchett.

Why read this: Among Friends begins in the polished world of old loyalties and inherited privilege, then coolly strips away its certainties, as a shocking act of violence brings long-held resentments and rivalries to the surface. Amos and Emerson have had an unbreakable friendship for over thirty years. Their wives are close. Their daughters grew up together. They're enjoying a wealthy middle age. But now their worlds have been shattered and each must choose whom and what they love most. Elegant, psychologically acute and edged with menace, it is the kind of social novel that leaves a bruise.

If you’re looking for: Upper-class discontent, friendship under strain, family secrets, psychological tension, literary page-turners.

Great for fans of: The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, The White Lotus, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas.

What the experts say: ‘A wonderful, sly and subtle novel. Every sentence keeps you hanging in the air, waiting for the next punch to the gut.' – Miranda Cowley Heller.

Why read this: One of the most anticipated titles of last year, Long Island is the sequel to Colm Tóibín’s beloved novel, Brooklyn. The now-married Eilis Fiorello, Tony and their two children live a safe, albeit staid, life on Long Island until a man arrives at their doorstep and everything Eilis knows is brought crashing down around her. Forced to confront the reality of her life and marriage, Eilis is drawn back to her native Ireland and the people she left behind decades ago. A powerful meditation on the nature of home, family and memory, Long Island is a masterpiece whether you have already read Brooklyn, or not.

If you’re looking for: Irish fiction, second chances, emotional restraint, midlife reckoning, elegant prose, longing.

Great for fans of: Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.

What the experts say: 'A masterful novel full of longing and regret.' – Douglas Stuart.

Why read this: Moss moves between 1960s Italy and contemporary Ireland in a novel that is quietly exacting about secrecy, womanhood and the stories families live inside. Teenager Edith has been sent by her mother to rural Italy. She must find her sister Lydia, a ballet dancer, help as she gives birth, then make a phone call which will seal all their fates. Decades later, another phone call changes the course of Edith's best friend Maebh's life, as an American man claiming to be her brother asks to meet.

If you’re looking for: Family secrets, literary historical fiction, women’s lives, Italy and Ireland settings.

Great for fans of: Summerwater by Sarah Moss, Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren, The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak.

What the experts say: ‘A book of tart and lasting pleasures’ – Eleanor Catton. ‘Tender and rueful’ – Emma Donoghue.

Why read this: One of the most revered novelists working today, a new novel from Alan Hollinghurst is a literary event not to be missed. In Our Evenings, Hollinghurst introduces Dave Win, who as a teenager is awarded a scholarship to a prestigious local boarding school. While staying with the sponsors who have given him this opportunity, Win is plunged into a privileged world he has never experienced and meets the family's cruel and jealous son, Giles. Following the two boys over the decades that follow their first meeting, Our Evenings is an intimate story of race, class, sexuality, love, and violence, written with Hollinghurst’s inimitable razor-sharp wit.

If you’re looking for: British life, queer fiction, theatre and art, expansive literary novels.

Great for fans of: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, Jonathan Coe.

What the experts say: 'I must confess my devotion immediately: I read every word this man writes. I wait for every new novel and the wait has been worth it: this is gorgeous. I simply love the way this man writes' – Russell T. Davies.

Why read this: Ibrahim’s debut brings speculative possibility into close conversation with migration, family and identity. Living in south London, doing her best to support her family after being abandoned by her father as a child, twenty-three-year-old Sirad Ali is pretty sure this is not the life she really wants. Then, on her commute to work, she's suddenly transported to an alternate life in present-day Mogadishu, and encounters Ubah, the woman she could have been had her parents not fled to London during the Somali Civil War. On her equally sudden return to Greenwich, Sirad must find a way to continue with her normal life. But then Ubah mysteriously appears in London.

If you’re looking for: Diaspora fiction, alternate realities, Somali British perspectives, family relationships, identity and belonging, speculative fiction.

Great for fans of: The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid.

What the experts say: ‘A bold, intriguing act of imagination’ – Aube Rey Lescure.

Why read this: Restless, funny and searching, Martyr! follows a young Iranian American man through addiction, art, grief and spiritual hunger. Cyrus Shams has been grappling with his mother's death ever since her plane was shot down when he was just a baby. Now, newly sober, he embarks on a journey to uncover her true identity and the mysteries attached to her life, triggered by an encounter with a dying artist. As Cyrus pieces together clippings from his mother's life, he is faced with a shocking revelation that shatters his beliefs. Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

If you’re looking for: Identity and inheritance, poetic prose, addiction and recovery, immigrant family stories, philosophical fiction, dark humour.

Great for fans of: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, No-One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

What the experts say: ‘Smart, dazzling, different. . . a novel of depth and complexity, tragedy and humour . . . This book is thrilling. There's no other word for it. It's like watching the novel itself be reinvented.' – Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake.

Why read this: Desai’s novella unfolds with her characteristic delicacy, tracing a young woman’s encounter with her mother’s hidden past. Arriving in San Miguel, Mexico, a destination chosen to help her improve her Spanish, from her native India, young student Bonita is anonymous and acutely aware of the possibility of adventure stretching out ahead of her. But, as she sits in a park, silently watching this unfamiliar world go by, she meets a stranger who swears she knew Bonita’s mother as an art student decades before. This woman’s revelation leads Bonita on a journey to learn the truth of who her mother once was; a journey that will change their relationship for good.

If you’re looking for: Identity, art, memory, mother–daughter relationships, secrets. 

Great for fans of: Jhumpa Lahiri, Kamila Shamsie, Anita Brookner, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.

Why read this: Trust is one of those rare novels that feels both intellectually playful and utterly absorbing. Through four competing narratives, Diaz examines money, power, marriage and authorship in early twentieth-century America, steadily dismantling the myths that wealth tells about itself. Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune?

If you’re looking for: Metafiction, unreliable narrators, wealth and power, literary puzzle-box novels, American novels, formal innovation.

Great for fans of: Donna Tartt, Kate Atkinson, A S Byatt ,Paul Auster.

What the experts say: 'Diaz is a narrative genius whose work easily encompasses both a grand scope and the crisp and whiplike line. Trust builds its world and characters with subtle aplomb. What a radiant, profound and moving novel.' Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies.

Why read this: Exploring themes of grief and sisterhood, this Booker Prize-shortlisted debut packs a real punch in just 176 pages. Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash for as long as she can remember. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a brutal training regimen and soon, the game has become her entire world, causing a rift between Gopi and her sisters. But on the court, governed by the rhythms of the sport, she feels alive; the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo. This novel beautifully captures the ordinary as we follow a young athlete's struggle to transcend herself.

If you’re looking for: Grief, sisterhood, sport, coming-of-age stories, minimalist prose.

Great for fans of: Aravind Adiga and Sunny Sahota.

What the experts say: 'A beautiful and evocative novel about grief, about growing up, about losing and winning. The people and places in this book will stay with me for a long time.' – Sally Rooney, author of Normal People.

Why read this: Mortimer’s debut is formally adventurous yet profoundly humane, charting one woman’s illness through a chorus of voices that includes the body itself. Something is moving in Lia's body, learning her life with gleeful malevolence and spreading through the rungs of her larynx, the bones of her trachea. When a shock diagnosis forever changes Lia's world, boundaries in her life begin to break down as buried secrets emerge. A coming-of-age at the end of life, this is both heart-breaking and darkly funny, combining wild lyricism with celebrations of the desire, forgiveness and darkness in our bodies. 

If you’re looking for: Experimental fiction, mother-daughter relationships, lyrical prose.

Great for fans of: Max Porter, Megan Hunter, Eley Williams.

What the experts say: ‘Original, memorable, shimmering’ – Sarah Moss. ‘Extraordinary, kaleidoscopic’ – Daisy Johnson.

Why read this: To Paradise is a true epic in three parts. We are taken from an alternate nineteenth-century America, where people may live and love as they want (or so it initially seems), to a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, and finally towards the end of our current century, where 2093's America has been torn apart by plagues and is governed by totalitarian rule. To Paradise re-emphasises what we already know from A Little Life: Hanya Yanagihara truly understands the very human desire to protect those we love, and the pain that ensues when we cannot.

If you’re looking for: LGBTQ+ fiction, stories about family, alternate histories, literary dystopia, climate fiction, explorations of loss.

Great for fans of: Edith Wharton, Kazuo Ishiguro.

What the experts think: 'To Paradise is a transcendent, visionary novel of stunning scope and depth. A novel so layered, so rich, so relevant, so full of the joys and terrors – the pure mystery – of human life, is not only rare, it’s revolutionary.  – Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours.

Why read this: Mendelson takes the family novel and sharpens it into something glittering and merciless. At the centre is Ray Hanrahan – artist, narcissist, domestic tyrant – around whom his wife and children orbit in states of resentment, loyalty and longing. His life, Lucia, is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. However, she is hiding secrets of her own, and as Ray's new exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice.

If you’re looking for: Family drama, toxic patriarchy, art and ambition, queer desire, dark humour, psychologically sharp fiction.

What the experts say: ‘Funny, furious, dark and delicious’ – Sarah Waters.

Why read this: A post-apocalyptic novel that resists bleakness, Station Eleven asks what endures when the structures of civilisation fall away. Mandel’s fractured, time-slipping narrative moves between past and present, tracing the quiet interdependencies that bind her characters. At its heart is a conviction in the necessity of art – Shakespeare, music, memory – as both solace and survival. Elegant, melancholic and unexpectedly tender, this is less a story of collapse than of continuity, where meaning is assembled from what remains.

If you’re looking for: Literary dystopia, non-linear storytelling, meditations on art and survival, interconnected lives.

Great for fans of: Margaret Atwood, Hugh Howey.

What the experts say: 'Disturbing, inventive and exciting, Station Eleven left me wistful for a world where I still live' – Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist.

Why read this: DeLillo’s cult classic feels, if anything, more relevant now: a novel about media saturation, consumer anxiety and the strange absurdity of living under the constant pressure of catastrophe. Jack Gladney is the creator and chairman of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill. The novel is a story about his absurd life; a life that is going well enough, until a chemical spill from a rail car releases an 'Airborne Toxic Event' and Jack is forced to confront his biggest fear – his own mortality.

If you’re looking for: Satirical classics, American literary fiction, media and consumer culture, dark comedy, philosophical novels.

Why read this: Douglas Stuart's Booker Prize-winning debut is a gripping, sad, beautiful portrait of love, addiction and the ruthlessness of poverty. In 1980s Glasgow, Agnes Bain has been abandoned by her husband and, one by one, her children, who must escape her drinking in order to survive. Only Shuggie remains, dedicated to trying to help his mother, and trying his hardest to be 'normal' like the other boys. 

If you’re looking for: Heartbreak, lyrical writing, prize-winning books, books set in the 80s, Scottish fiction, books about family, mother/son relationships.

Great for fans of: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.

What the experts think: 'All that grief and sadness and misery has been turned into something tough, tender and beautifully sad' –The Times. 'I love a heartbreak book but there is so much love within this one' – Dua Lipa, singer and founder of the Service95 book club.

Why read this: Notorious for its violence and revered for its language, Blood Meridian is a western stripped of romance and remade as nightmare. Through the hostile landscape of the Texas–Mexico border wanders the Kid, a fourteen year-old Tennessean who is quickly swept up in the relentless tide of blood. But the apparent chaos is not without its order: while Americans hunt Indians – collecting scalps as their bloody trophies – they too are stalked as prey. Powerful, mesmerizing and savagely beautiful, Blood Meridian is considered one of the most important works in American fiction of the last century.

If you’re looking for: Modern classics, literary westerns, morally dark fiction, philosophical violence, American landscapes, uncompromising prose.

What the experts say: 'Blood Meridian is his masterpiece . . . An astonishing sanguinary epic dealing with the Indian wars of the 1840s in West Texas and Mexico . . . Unlike anything I have ever read in recent years, an extraordinary, breathtaking achievement.' –  John Banville, author of The Sea.

Why read this: Hollinghurst’s Booker Prize-winning novel remains one of the defining portraits of Thatcher-era Britain: sensuous, satirical and exquisitely alert to the collisions of class, sexuality and power. In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the wealthy Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious Tory MP, his wife Rachel and their children Toby and Catherine. Innocent of politics and money, Nick is swept up into the Feddens’ world and an era of endless possibility, all the while pursuing his own private obsession with beauty. What makes the novel so enduring is its double vision – alive to glamour and desire, but equally sharp on hypocrisy, exclusion and political decay.

If you’re looking for: Queer literary classics, class and politics, 1980s Britain, social satire, lush prose, novels of manners.

Why read this: Johnson’s National Book Award-winning novel is a daring fusion of sea adventure, philosophical inquiry and historical reckoning. Rutherford Calhoun, a puckish rogue and newly freed slave, spends his days around the docks of New Orleans, dodging debt collectors, gangsters, and a woman who seeks to marry him. When the heat from his pursuers overwhelms him, he cons his way onto the next ship leaving the dock. Upon boarding, he discovers that he is on an illegal slave ship, looking to capture members of the legendary Allmuseri tribe. The Captain also has a secondary objective: securing a mysterious cargo that possesses an otherworldly power. A blend of allegory, black comedy, naval adventure and supernatural horror, Middle Passage is a true modern classic.

If you’re looking for: Modern classics, historical fiction, genre-blending, sea voyages, satire, dark humour.

Great for fans of: Percival Everett.

Why read this: Inspired by a real maritime mystery, The Lamplighters combines suspense with a deep interest in grief, isolation and the stories people tell to survive uncertainty. Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week. Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on, when they are given the chance to tell their side of the story.

If you’re looking for: Atmospheric mysteries, coastal fiction, dual timelines, literary thriller.

Great for fans of: Sarah Waters, Daphne duMaurier, Tana French and Maggie O'Farrell.

What the experts say: 'A mystery, a love story and a ghost story, all at once' - SJ Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep.

Why read this: Few novels capture the fragile dignity of ordinary ambition quite like A House for Mr Biswas. By turns wryly comic and quietly devastating, Naipaul traces one man’s lifelong struggle for autonomy in post-colonial Trinidad. This is the story of Mr Biswas, a man born into misfortune, and his quest to find a worthy home of his own. Satisfying, lyrical and humorous.

If you’re looking for: Postcolonial identity, dark comedy, family dynamics, social mobility, richly observed realism, outsider protagonists.

What the experts say: ‘A great novel’ – Barack Obama. ‘A work of great comic power’ – Anthony Burgess.

Why read this: Kincaid’s coming-of-age classic turns the familiar drama of adolescence into something sharper, stranger and more exacting. Much loved only child Annie has always had a tranquil life. She and her beautiful mother are intertwined and inseparable. But when Annie turns twelve, her life shifts. She questions authority, makes rebel friends and wonders about the culture assumptions of her island world. And the unconditional love between Annie and her mother takes an adversarial turn. 

If you’re looking for: Coming-of-age fiction, mother-daughter conflict, concise literary classics.

What the experts say: ‘Elegant, uncompromising, simultaneously direct and layered and complex’ – Ali Smith.

Why read this: Few novels inspire such intense feeling as A Little Life. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and celebrated as ‘the great gay novel’, Hanya Yanagihara’s immensely powerful story of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance has had a visceral impact on many a reader. Following four friends across years in New York, it begins as a portrait of ambition and intimacy before narrowing around the enigma of Jude, whose suffering becomes the novel’s devastating centre. Yanagihara writes about friendship, care and endurance on an operatic scale, yet the book’s power lies in its close attention to dependency, damage and the fragile forms love can take. It is demanding, often harrowing, and unforgettable.

If you’re looking for: Intense emotional fiction, friendship novels, trauma and survival, expansive contemporary literary fiction, New York settings.

What the experts say: ‘A book unlike any other’ – The Guardian. ‘A singularly profound and moving work’ – The Times.

Why read this: Beneath its speculative premise lies a gentle, reflective meditation on regret and connection. In a Tokyo café where time travel is real, but fleeting, visitors revisit pivotal moments, not to change the present, but to understand it. This opportunity is not without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . . 

If you’re looking for: Healing fiction, time travel, reflective reads, gentle escapism, Japanese books in translation.

Great for fans of: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa.

Why read this: Kawakami’s breakthrough novel is a searching, fiercely intelligent portrait of three women negotiating the pressures placed on female bodies and female lives. Mieko Kawakami paints a radical picture of contemporary working-class womanhood in Japan as she recounts the heartbreaking stories of women who must survive in a society where the odds are stacked against them.

If you’re looking for: Feminist fiction, contemporary Japan, women’s lives, bodily autonomy, class and precarity, fiction in translation.

Great for fans of: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

What the experts say: 'I can never forget the sense of pure astonishment I felt when I first read Mieko Kawakami’s novella Breasts and Eggs . . . breathtaking.' – Haruki Murakami

Why read this: A stark, lyrical reimagining of a real nineteenth-century Icelandic murder. In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of her lover. Agnes is sent to wait out her final months on the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderer in their midst, the family avoid contact with Agnes. Only Tóti, the young assistant priest appointed Agnes’s spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her. As the year progresses and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes’s story begins to emerge and with it the family’s terrible realization that all is not as they had assumed.

If you’re looking for: Atmospheric historical fiction, books with a strong sense of place, Icelandic setting, historical crime.

Great for fans of: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood and The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan.

What the experts say: 'So gripping I wanted to rush through the pages, but so beautifully written I wanted to linger over every sentence. Outstanding.' – Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles.