Book Awards

It's an ideal combination: literary ambition and a rollicking good plot packed with intrigue and drama. We asked deputy editor Cal Flyn to pull together a list of five Booker Prize-nominated mystery novels, from an astrologically-inspired murder mystery set in goldrush-era New Zealand to an unusually intellectual noir starring a jaded reporter in rustbelt America.

Those who love historical fiction have plenty of choice among the list of past Booker Prize-winning novels. We asked Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn to put together an overview of the Booker's past victors that will sweep you from Tudor England to 20th-century India by way of the 19th-century Australian outback.

We asked Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn to compile an overview of the memoirs that won major literary prizes in the 2025 awards season: from the posthumously-published autobiography of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to a graphic memoir that wrestles with a legacy of intergenerational trauma.

Biography can be a tricky category to keep track of—being so varied in subject matter—so we asked our deputy editor Cal Flyn to put together an overview of the new biographies that won major British or American literary prizes in 2025: from a dual biography of rival Enlightenment scientists to a "compassionate" portrayal of a troubled trans icon.

What are the most highly acclaimed novels of the year? We asked Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn to put together a summary of award-winning fiction of 2025—novels that won major literary prizes in the English-speaking world—as one answer to this impossible question.

Every year, the Pulitzer Prize jury awards $15,000 to a work of "distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life." We've compiled a guide to the books that have won this prize since the turn of the millennium.

This year, to mark its 25th anniversary, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction set out to find the funniest book of the last twenty-five years. We asked comedian Tatty Macleod, one of the judges, about the process of sifting through 25 previous winners to find the funniest book of the 21st century.

Every year, the Pulitzer Prize jury awards $15,000 to a "distinguished and appropriately documented book on the history of the United States." We've compiled a guide to the winning books since the turn of the millennium.

As we know that many of our readers like to work their way through the list of Booker-winners, we've compiled an overview the winning titles from the last two decades.

Every year, the judges of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction draw up a shortlist of books that made them laugh out loud. We asked the novelist Stephanie Merritt, one of the 2025 judges, to talk us through the eight books in the running for the title of the funniest book of the year.