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.

152 reviews in this genre.

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.

Anxious People

by Fredrik Backman

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman 2020 review. A failed bank robber takes a Stockholm apartment-viewing hostage. Backman's structurally most ambitious novel and the basis for the Netflix limited series.

The Priory of the Orange Tree

by Samantha Shannon

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon 2019 review. A standalone epic fantasy across four kingdoms preparing for the return of a banished ancient dragon. Canonical contemporary literary epic fantasy.

The Women

by Kristin Hannah

The Women by Kristin Hannah 2024 review. A California debutante follows her brother to Vietnam as an Army nurse in 1967. Kristin Hannah's structural masterwork and the best-selling adult novel of 2024.

Wandering Stars

by Tommy Orange

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange 2024 review. The historical-and-contemporary follow-up to There There. The Red Feather ancestral chain from Sand Creek 1864 through the present.

Intermezzo

by Sally Rooney

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney 2024 review. Two Dublin brothers - a lawyer and a chess player - navigate grief and romance after their father's death. Rooney's fourth novel and her structurally most ambitious yet.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton 2018 review. Aiden Bishop wakes in eight different bodies at a 1920s country house and must solve a murder. Costa First Novel Award winner.

The Berry Pickers

by Amanda Peters

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters 2023 review. A 1962 Mi'kmaq blueberry-picking family loses a four-year-old daughter in rural Maine. Andrew Carnegie Medal winner 2024.

The Marriage Portrait

by Maggie O'Farrell

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell 2022 review. Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici recognizes that her husband, the Duke of Ferrara, intends to kill her. O'Farrell's Hamnet follow-up.

The Mountain in the Sea

by Ray Nayler

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler 2022 review. A scientist studies a possibly-sentient octopus species on a Con Dao island. Nebula Award finalist and the canonical contemporary literary science fiction of its year.

Baumgartner

by Paul Auster

Baumgartner by Paul Auster 2023 review. A seventy-year-old Princeton philosophy professor a decade after his wife's drowning. Auster's final novel before his 2024 death.

Harlem Shuffle

by Colson Whitehead

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead 2021 review. A Harlem furniture-store owner navigates three crime arcs across 1959-1964. Whitehead's pivot from Pulitzer-winning literary fiction to a Harlem crime trilogy.

Olive Kitteridge

by Elizabeth Strout

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 2008 review. A retired Maine math teacher across thirteen interlinked stories. Pulitzer Prize 2009 and canonical contemporary American interconnected-novels project.

Suttree

by Cormac McCarthy

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy 1979 review. An educated Knoxville man lives as a fisherman among the city's underclass. McCarthy's pre-Blood-Meridian comic-tragic masterwork.

The Mothers

by Brit Bennett

The Mothers by Brit Bennett 2016 review. A seventeen-year-old in a Black Oceanside church community has a secret pregnancy with the pastor's son. Bennett's debut and the structural predecessor to The Vanishing Half.

The Women of Troy

by Pat Barker

The Women of Troy by Pat Barker 2021 review. Briseis narrates the days after the fall of Troy as the Greeks wait for favorable winds. Barker's sequel to The Silence of the Girls.

A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman 2012 review. A fifty-nine-year-old Swedish curmudgeon plans his suicide until a young family moves in across the courtyard. Backman's debut.

Bel Canto

by Ann Patchett

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 2001 review. South American guerrillas take an opera singer and her audience hostage in a vice-presidential mansion. Orange Prize and PEN/Faulkner winner.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

by Marlon James

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James 2019 review. A hunter with a heightened sense of smell seeks a missing child across a sub-Saharan African fantasy continent. First Dark Star book.

Crossroads

by Jonathan Franzen

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen 2021 review. The Hildebrandt family across the first months of 1971 in suburban Chicago. Franzen's structural return to form and first book of the Key trilogy.

Erasure

by Percival Everett

Erasure by Percival Everett 2001 review. A Black literary novelist writes a deliberately stereotype-saturated parody novel that becomes a commercial sensation. The basis for American Fiction (2023).

The Dutch House

by Ann Patchett

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett 2019 review. A brother and sister exiled from their childhood home park on the curb across the street for fifty years. Pulitzer Prize finalist.

The Trees

by Percival Everett

The Trees by Percival Everett 2021 review. Brutal murders in Money, Mississippi, all link to the 1955 Emmett Till lynching. Booker Prize shortlist 2022.

1Q84

by Haruki Murakami

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami 2009 review. An assassin and a novelist navigate a parallel-1984 Tokyo with two moons. Murakami's structural masterwork.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

by Anthony Marra

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra 2013 review. Five days in 2004 Chechnya - a doctor hides an eight-year-old girl whose father has just been disappeared. Marra's debut.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving 1989 review. Johnny Wheelwright narrates his friendship with Owen Meany, a tiny child convinced he is God's instrument, across decades. Irving's canonical work.

In the Time of the Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez 1994 review. The four Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic navigate the Trujillo dictatorship. Alvarez's structural masterwork.

Let Us Descend

by Jesmyn Ward

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward 2023 review. An enslaved teenage girl walks from a Carolina rice plantation to the New Orleans slave market. Ward's structural follow-up to Sing Unburied Sing.

Norwegian Wood

by Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami 1987 review. A middle-aged Japanese businessman remembers his late-1960s Tokyo college years and the two women who defined them. Murakami's breakthrough.

Sing, Unburied, Sing

by Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 2017 review. A thirteen-year-old biracial boy and his drug-addicted mother drive to Parchman Penitentiary. National Book Award winner.

The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

The Cider House Rules by John Irving 1985 review. An orphan raised at a Maine abortion-and-orphanage practice leaves to work at an apple orchard. Irving's structural masterwork before A Prayer for Owen Meany.

The Fraud

by Zadie Smith

The Fraud by Zadie Smith 2023 review. A Scottish housekeeper becomes obsessed with the 1860s Tichborne case. Smith's structural pivot into Victorian historical fiction.

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Highest-rated literary fiction on the shelf

Beloved

Blood Meridian

Bring Up the Bodies

James

Klara and the Sun

Never Let Me Go

No Country for Old Men

Normal People

Song of Solomon

The Goldfinch

The Handmaid's Tale

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Road

The Secret History

The Underground Railroad

Wolf Hall

Anxious People

The Priory of the Orange Tree

The Women

Wandering Stars

Intermezzo

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

The Berry Pickers

The Marriage Portrait

The Mountain in the Sea

Baumgartner

Harlem Shuffle

Olive Kitteridge

Suttree

The Mothers

The Women of Troy

A Man Called Ove

Bel Canto

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Crossroads

Erasure

The Dutch House

The Trees

1Q84

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

A Prayer for Owen Meany

In the Time of the Butterflies

Let Us Descend

Norwegian Wood

Sing, Unburied, Sing

The Cider House Rules

The Fraud

Looking for a specific kind of literary fiction?

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