Books by Maggie O'Farrell

If you enjoy listening to books as audiobooks, it’s a great time to be alive. From Rosamund Pike narrating Pride and Prejudice, Jeremy Irons reading Lolita to Meryl Streep telling the story of Heartburn, many prominent actors have signed up for performing their favourite books in unabridged versions.

In recent years there has been a boom in fiction that reimagines stories of the past—tales that have traditionally been told by men—through female eyes. Here, the writer Flora Carr recommends five of the best feminist historical novels, and reflects on the role of historical fiction in enhancing our understanding of the past.

The Walter Scott Prize seeks to highlight the very best of historical fiction—and in 2021, we find the shortlist dominated by Australian writers. Katharine Grant, the acclaimed novelist and chair of the judges, returns to Five Books to discuss the cream of this year’s crop, and the art of transforming the historical record into a creative exercise.

Historical novels are at their most compelling when they get the details of daily life in the past right, argues bestselling author Tracy Chevalier. She picks five of her favorite historical novels set in Italy, from 16th-century Florence to 1950s Naples, with a couple of stops in Venice, where her own latest novel, The Glassmaker, is set.

Every year, the Women’s Prize for Fiction highlights the best novels written by women over the previous twelve months. In 2023, the six-strong Women’s Prize shortlist features the latest books by beloved bestsellers Barbara Kingsolver and Maggie O’Farrell, plus a debut novel set during the siege of Sarajevo and a book told primarily from the point of view of a dolphin.

Every year AudioFile magazine reviews thousands of new audiobooks and in its annual best-of-the-year lists its editors include only books that make exceptional listening. Here Robin Whitten, AudioFile’s founder and editor, picks out five outstanding audiobooks in a range of genres and explains what it is that makes them special.

Fall is a busy time in publishing, as the biggest names in fiction prepare to release new books in the months leading up to Christmas. Here, Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn rounds up some of the most notable novels of Fall 2022—including two new books from the great American novelist Cormac McCarthy and a sumptuous work of historical fiction from Maggie O’Farrell.

We have much to learn from the lives of women who came before us, says Dorothy Byrne, the British TV journalist and producer who is now president of a women’s college at the University of Cambridge. She recommends five of her favourite memoirs, all by women and notable for their searing truthfulness about everyday life.