The Best Fiction Books

Looking for a new book to get stuck into? Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn offers a round-up of the most notable novels of spring 2024, including fresh titles from Percival Everett and Alexis Wright, plus the 'lost' final novel by Gabriel García Márquez—published a decade after his death. See all our best novels of 2024 recommendations

Popular fiction is popular for a reason: confounding mysteries, devastating love stories, and spectacular visions of speculative worlds offer us an escape hatch from everyday life. Here we offer a handy Five Books round-up of superior genre novels of spring 2024 including unmissable new titles from firm fan favourites. See all our best novels of 2024 recommendations

We use 'science fantasy' when a book seems to be both science fiction and fantasy. What distinguishes the two, and what does it mean to combine them? These books are an opportunity to explore our ways of knowing, reflect changing cultures, and find humour in the unexpected, says award-winning fantasy and sci fi author Vajra Chandrasekera.

To keep up to date with the latest novels coming out, a good place to bookmark is our 'new literary fiction' page. Our deputy editor Cal Flyn keeps an eye on the myriad of new novels being published and picks out some of her favourites.

Nigeria is a vast, vibrant, and highly diverse country that offers endless inspiration for fiction writers. Here, the novelist and poet Chioma Okereke—whose new book Water Baby unfolds in Makoko, an extraordinary floating slum in Lagos—recommends five fascinating novels that are also set in Nigeria.

There's always been a fondness in the English-speaking world for novels about German history, but recently the books being translated into English have become much more diverse and interesting, says award-winning translator and publisher Katy Derbyshire. She introduces us to some her favourite German novels from recent years, taking us beyond Germany to Bosnia, Donbas and even Ghana.

Twins are literary gold, but they also open the door to a host of fundamental questions about identity, freedom and even love, says Helena de Bres, a philosopher at Wellesley College and herself an identical twin. She recommends five philosophically evocative books involving twins, from YA romance to John Steinbeck, winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The award-winning novelist Meg Rosoff talks about coming-of-age tales, highlighting the wonder of the moment when adolescents find the world suddenly coming into focus.

Every year, the judges for the Booker Prize read more than a hundred books that have been submitted by their publishers in the hope of being recognised by one of the world's most prestigious literary awards. The 2023 shortlist features a novel-in-stories, an Irish dystopia, and plenty of family drama. See the Booker Prize shortlist 2024.

The emphasis in new African writing is away from politics towards how the individual responds to events, says South African novelist Mphuthumi Ntabeni, author of The Broken River Tent and The Wanderers. He picks out five outstanding books of African writing, including novels that paved the way for new genres, a book of short stories from across Africa, and a work of nonfiction that he recommends to "anybody who wants to know what is happening in South Africa."