The Best Novels of 2024

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.

If you struggle to keep abreast of notable new novels, it can be helpful to check the consult a list of winners of recent literary awards. The juries of major prizes often wade through dozens or even hundreds of submissions when they put together their shortlists, and are therefore well placed to offer informed recommendations. Here, we've put together an easy to consult round-up of novels that won big literary awards in 2024.

From the latest detective novels and cozy crime to unsettling psychological thrillers, Five Books editor Sophie Roell does a round-up of some of her favourite crime novels of the past year.

Award-winning sci fi books this year have ranged from deep-sea dives to space operas to goats. Our fantasy and sci fi editor Sylvia Bishop talks us through the winning titles.

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.

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.

2024 was a solid year for mystery books, with books out from some of the best contemporary writers in the genre, including Tana French, S.A. Cosby, and Ruth Ware. The range of mood was also broad, with some wistful and nostalgic tales, and other books that are laugh-out-loud funny. Our best mystery books of 2025 list is now up and running. 

If you love adventure stories, you'll be delighted to hear that there's a book prize fully focused on them. Novelist Emma Styles, one of the judges for the 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, talks us through the shortlist for best published novel, from pirates in the Caribbean to World War II Italy, from Victorian London to a dystopian future Britain—by way of Nigeria and Tbilisi, Georgia.

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.

The judges of the Walter Scott Prize aim to highlight the very best new historical novels, and in 2024 they have settled on a varied shortlist featuring a Trinidadian tragedy, a Vatican-based thriller, and a charming coming-of-age tale from 1960s Middle England. We spoke to Katharine Grant, chair of the judging panel, to find out more. See also Best Historical Fiction Books 2025