The Best Fiction Books

Adventure means something different for everyone, says Nathan Gray, former fighter pilot and a judge for this year's Wilbur Smith Prize for Adventure Writing. He talks us through the brilliant books that made the 2025 shortlist, and the journeys they took him on.

Fall 2025 is an exciting season for new novels, says Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn. Here, she selects her autumnal highlights including autofictional work from Patricia Lockwood and Chris Kraus, plus a literary detective story set in an apocalyptic future from the "old master," Ian McEwan.

Popular Korean fantasy today features characters and themes from a rich tradition. Author, historian and translator Minsoo Kang introduces five key texts available in English, from founding myths to fantastical novels, and explains the history that shaped these stories – and, just as importantly, shaped the desires of their modern readers.

Exploring a historical era through crime is a particularly interesting way to explore that society, says award-winning novelist Anna Mazzola. Here she recommends five fabulous works of fiction that bring to life the impact of crimes in historical settings, from Victorian Britain to 18^th-century Jamaica.

If you are looking for your next favourite read, why not try one of these five buzzed-about novels published in the summer of 2025? We've put together a summary of the new fiction books that have caught our eye this season, from the latest, brilliantly ambitious offering from Susan Choi to the most hotly anticipated debut novels.

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.

Shorter is better is the mantra of the digital age, but for some of us, there is no greater pleasure than reading a really long novel. Here we've listed some of the novels recommended on Five Books that are at least 400,000 words long, from literary classics to potboilers.

We asked Rie Qudan, author of the award-winning novel Sympathy Tower Tokyo, to recommend her favourite Japanese novels. She selected five 20th century classics that highlight different aspects of Japanese sensibility — from the aesthetics and obsessive devotion of a 1933 novella by Tanizaki, to the desire and alienation of a 1994 Murakami novel.

In portal fantasy, characters leave one world for another – satisfying a yearning we all share, says fantasy novelist and Five Books fantasy editor Sylvia Bishop. She introduces us to five unforgettable doorways – through attics and out of dreams, via the liminal spaces between worlds, into the endless possibilities beyond.

It's notoriously difficult to recognise great works of literature at the time of publication, but certain books come to the fore as 'modern classics': exceptional texts that will stand the test of time. We asked James Rebanks, the Lake District shepherd and celebrated author, to recommend five books that deserve the label.