The Best Fiction Books

Our seasonal round-up of notable new releases in fiction: Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn offers an overview of the spring 2025 novels you should have on your literary radar: new work from Nobel laureates, a buzzy new debut set in Berlin, and a conceptually thrilling Scandinavian sci-fi septology.

An exploration of the history of the United States may require novels that are challenging to read but offer the reward of really making you think about a complex subject. Literary scholar Bernard T. Joy talks us through five novels that explore U.S. history, from colonial times to the end of the 20th century.

This week sees the publication of Onyx Storm, the third follow-up to American author Rebecca Yarros's hit novel Fourth Wing. As romantasy book series continue to crowd global bestseller lists, journalist Francesca Martin explains what the genre is all about and how she got hooked.

Every year, the £50,000 Booker Prize is awarded to a work of fiction newly published in English. We spoke to the composer Nitin Sawhney, one of this year's judges, about their search for a shortlist, and why these six books—including the winning title, Samantha Harvey's space station novel Orbital—are the best novels of 2024.

Always looking for the perfect audiobook to listen to in the car, during exercise, or while cleaning—and never know where to start? We've got you. Our friends at AudioFile magazine have put together their definitive guide to the best audiobooks of 2024. Here are the recent fiction releases they recommend most strongly: six novels read by gifted narrators that will keep you captivated.

This year’s award-winning fantasy books offer something for every taste, from melancholic fairy tales to gripping horror. Our fantasy and sci fi editor Sylvia Bishop introduces the winning titles.

Every year, judges for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize ferret out the very best in newly published comic fiction. This year, the seven-novel shortlist ranges from steampunk fantasy to romantic comedy—and they are, says judge Justin Albert, the funniest books of 2024.

The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize was Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, the first novel to win the prize that's set in space. Below, our list of all the Booker Prize-winning novels of the last twenty years.

Our deputy editor Cal Flyn compiles her autumnal literary fiction highlights: five freshly released and hotly anticipated new novels that you should have on your reading list in the fall of 2024: from Sally Rooney to Garth Greenwell.

From a novel about the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba to the latest John le Carré novel, from a Mossad agent in London to the hunt for a traitor at CIA HQ in Virginia, Shane Whaley, host of Spybrary—the podcast for lovers of spy books—talks us through his best spy novels of 2024.