Genre
The best Literary Fiction books
Character-driven, sentence-level prose, ambivalent endings. The kind of novel that wins prizes and arguments at book club.
32 reviews in this genre.
Editor's picks
Highest-rated literary fiction on the shelf
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison 1987 review. Sethe, a former slave living in Reconstruction-era Ohio, is haunted by the daughter she killed to save from slavery. Pulitzer Prize 1988 and one of the canonical American novels of the late twentieth century.
Blood Meridian
by Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy 1985 review. A nameless teenager joins a band of Indian-hunters along the Texas-Mexico border in 1849. The most violent American novel of the late twentieth century and the rare McCarthy book that demands the prose attention it requires.
Bring Up the Bodies
by Hilary Mantel
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel 2012 review. Thomas Cromwell engineers the fall of Anne Boleyn and the rise of Jane Seymour. Booker Prize 2012, the second volume of the Cromwell trilogy, and the rare novel that exceeds an already-canonical predecessor.
James
by Percival Everett
James by Percival Everett 2024 review. A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved man Jim, in his own voice. The most important American novel of 2024 and the right Everett entry point.
Klara and the Sun
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 review. Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches the children passing by the storefront and waits to be chosen. Late-career Ishiguro at his most patient and most strange.
Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 review. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, a special English boarding school. As adults, they begin to understand what Hailsham was for. The novel that defined the contemporary literary-SF register.
No Country for Old Men
by Cormac McCarthy
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy 2005 review. A Texas welder finds a satchel of cash at a drug-deal massacre, and the man who comes for it does not stop. Late McCarthy in his cleanest thriller mode.
Normal People
by Sally Rooney
Normal People by Sally Rooney 2018 review. Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small Sligo town, attend Trinity College Dublin together, and orbit each other across four years of intermittent intimacy. The literary-fiction novel that defined the Rooney moment.
Song of Solomon
by Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison 1977 review. Macon "Milkman" Dead III, born into a comfortable Black family in 1930s Michigan, travels south to discover his ancestral history. Morrison's third novel and one of her two unquestioned masterpieces alongside Beloved.
The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 2013 review. Theo Decker, thirteen, survives a Metropolitan Museum bombing that kills his mother and ends up with a stolen painting that defines the next decade of his life. Pulitzer Prize 2014.
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood 1985 review. In the near-future Republic of Gilead, women have been stripped of their rights, and the handmaid Offred remembers the world before. The most-cited dystopian novel of the late twentieth century.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
by James McBride
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride 2023 review. A 1972 skeleton found at the bottom of a Pottstown, Pennsylvania well sends the novel back to a 1930s neighborhood where Black, Jewish, and immigrant families lived alongside each other. The most important American novel of 2023.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman 2013 review. A middle-aged man returns to his Sussex childhood home for a funeral and remembers something he had carefully forgotten. Late Gaiman at his most patient and most personal.
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2006 review. A father and son walk south across a burned-out post-apocalyptic America toward an uncertain coast. Pulitzer Prize 2007 and one of the great American novels of the twenty-first century.
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
The Secret History by Donna Tartt 1992 review. A new student at a Vermont college is drawn into an exclusive Greek-studies seminar and the murder that the small clique conceals. The novel that defined the dark-academia register before it had a name.
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead 2016 review. Cora, a slave on a Georgia plantation, escapes north via an actual underground railroad, a literalized version of the metaphor. Pulitzer Prize 2017 and the National Book Award winner that defined the contemporary Black literary moment.
Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 2009 review. Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son who rose to serve Henry VIII, reorganizes the English state at the cost of his own soul. Booker Prize 2009 and the most important historical novel of the twenty-first century.
A Brief History of Seven Killings
by Marlon James
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James 2014 review. The 1976 attempt on Bob Marley's life and its aftermath across Jamaica, Miami, and New York. Booker Prize 2015 and the most structurally ambitious novel from the Caribbean in a generation.
A Visit from the Goon Squad
by Jennifer Egan
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan 2010 review. An interconnected novel about a music-industry executive, his assistant, and the people their lives touch across forty years. Pulitzer Prize 2011 and the canonical postmodern American family novel of its decade.
Atonement
by Ian McEwan
Atonement by Ian McEwan 2001 review. On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses something she does not understand and tells a lie that destroys her sister's life. Booker shortlist 2001 and one of the canonical novels of the twenty-first century.
In the Woods
by Tana French
In the Woods by Tana French 2007 review. Dublin Murder Squad detective Rob Ryan is assigned to a child murder in the same woods where his two best friends disappeared twenty years earlier. The Edgar winner that launched the strongest contemporary literary-crime series.
Little Fires Everywhere
by Celeste Ng
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng 2017 review. Two Shaker Heights families collide over the adoption of a Chinese-American baby. The novel that established Ng as one of the major contemporary literary fiction writers of her generation.
Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 2017 review. Four generations of a Korean family in twentieth-century Japan, beginning with Sunja's pregnancy by a married Korean gangster in 1933 Busan. The Apple TV+ adaptation source and one of the canonical contemporary Korean-American literary novels.
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen 2001 review. A Midwestern family gathers for one last Christmas as the patriarch slips into Parkinson's-related dementia. National Book Award 2001 and the canonical American family novel of its decade.
The Mirror & the Light
by Hilary Mantel
The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel 2020 review. The final volume of the Cromwell trilogy, covering Thomas Cromwell from the execution of Anne Boleyn to his own arrest and execution four years later. The eight-year-awaited closure of the most important historical-fiction project of the twenty-first century.
The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead 2019 review. Two boys at the segregated Nickel Academy reform school in 1960s Florida, based on the real Dozier School. Pulitzer Prize 2020 and the canonical contemporary American novel on institutional violence against Black children.
The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett 1989 review. The building of a twelfth-century English cathedral against the backdrop of civil war. The 1,024-page novel that defined the modern epic historical fiction.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 2017 review. An aging Hollywood icon agrees to tell the true story of her career and her seven marriages, but only to an unknown journalist. The TikTok-era literary fiction novel that defined contemporary Hollywood-memoir-fiction.
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
White Teeth by Zadie Smith 2000 review. The friendship between Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal, two London immigrants whose families collide across half a century. The 1999 Whitbread debut that announced one of the most important contemporary British novelists.
The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig
A gorgeous concept executed with warmth and wit. The Midnight Library will make you think differently about the choices you have made - and the ones still ahead.
The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood 2000 review. An elderly woman reconstructs the suspicious death of her sister, decades after the publication of the controversial novel-within-a-novel that bears the title The Blind Assassin. Booker Prize 2000.
The Nightingale
by Kristin Hannah
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah 2015 review. Two French sisters in occupied France during World War II. One joins the Resistance; one harbors a Nazi officer in her home. The historical-fiction bestseller that established Hannah as the contemporary master of women's WWII fiction.
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