The Greatest Books Since 1970 Written by British Authors

  1. 1 . Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

    Midnight's Children is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the independence and partition of India, which took place at midnight on 15 August 1947. The protagonis...

  2. 2 . Atonement by Ian McEwan

    Atonement is a 2001 novel by British author Ian McEwan. It tells the story of protagonist Briony Tallis's crime and how it changes her life, as well as those of her sister Cecilia and her lover Rob...

  3. 3 . White Teeth by Zadie Smith

    This may be the first novel ever written that truly feels at home in our borderless, globalized, intermarried, post-colonial age, populated by "children with first and last names on a direct collis...

    - Time
  4. 4 . The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

    The Remains of the Day (1989) is the third published novel by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro. The Remains of The Day is one of the most highly-regarded post-war British novels. It won the B...

  5. 5 . The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

    The Sea, the Sea is the 19th novel by Iris Murdoch. It won the Booker Prize in 1978. The Sea, the Sea is a tale of the strange obsessions that haunt a self-satisfied playwright and director as h...

  6. 6 . The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the title of the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. The novel is an adaptation of th...

  7. 7 . Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone by J. K Rowling

    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring Harry Potter, a young wizard. It describes how Harry discovers he is a ...

  8. 8 . Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

    The novel describes the life of Kathy H., a young woman of 31, focusing at first on her childhood at an unusual boarding school and eventually her adult life. The story takes place in a dystopian B...

  9. 9 . The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

    Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & Geor...

    - Google
  10. 10 . The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

    The Line of Beauty is a 2004 Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst. Set in the United Kingdom in the early to mid-1980s, the story surrounds the post-Oxford life of the young gay prota...

  11. 11 . Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

    Cloud Atlas (published in the United States as Cloud Atlas: A Novel) is a 2004 novel, the third book by British author David Mitchell. It won the British Book Awards Literary Fiction Award and the ...

  12. 12 . Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

    Wolf Hall (2009) is a Man Booker Prize-winning novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate. Set in the 1520s, it is about Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the Tudor court of...

  13. 13 . Possession by A. S. Byatt

    Part historical as well as contemporary fiction, the title Possession refers to issues of ownership and independence between lovers, the practice of collecting historically significant cultural art...

  14. 14 . Watership Down by Richard Adams

    Watership Down is a heroic fantasy novel about a small group of rabbits, written by British author Richard Adams. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are anthr...

  15. 15 . Regeneration by Pat Barker

    The first book of the Regeneration Trilogy and a Booker Prize nominee In 1917 Siegfried Sasson, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World...

    - Google
  16. 16 . Crash: A Novel by J. G. Ballard

    In this hallucinatory novel, an automobile provides the hellish tableau in which Vaughan, a "TV scientist" turned "nightmare angel of the highways," experiments with erotic atrocities among auto cr...

    - Google
  17. 17 . Money by Martin Amis

    Money tells the story of, and is narrated by, John Self, a successful director of commercials who is invited to New York by Fielding Goodney, a film producer, in order to shoot his first film. Self...

  18. 18 . NW: A Novel by Zadie Smith

    New York Times Ten Best Books of 2012 “A boldly Joycean appropriation, fortunately not so difficult of entry as its great model… Like Zadie Smith’s much-acclaimed predecessor White Teeth (2000), NW...

    - Google
  19. 19 . A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

    In the "brilliant novel" ("The New York Times) V.S. Naipaul takes us deeply into the life of one man--an Indian who, uprooted by the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in an isol...

  20. 20 . Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons

    Watchmen is a graphic novel—a book-length comic book with ambitions above its station—starring a ragbag of bizarre, damaged, retired superheroes: the paunchy, melancholic Nite Owl; the raving dooms...

    - Time
  21. 21 . His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

    The story involves fantasy elements such as witches and armoured polar bears, and alludes to a broad range of ideas from fields such as physics, philosophy, theology and spirituality. It follows th...

  22. 22 . Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

    It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a cons...

    - Amazon
  23. 23 . Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

    The character of the chief protagonist of The Satanic Verses is based on Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan and a bit of Rama Rao. The title refers to what are known as the satanic verses, a group o...

  24. 24 . London Fields by Martin Amis

    London Fields is Amis's murder story for the end of the millennium. The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may ...

    - Google
  25. 25 . Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter

    Is Sophie Fevvers, toast of Europe's capitals, part swan...or all fake? Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearn...

    - Google
  26. 26 . Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

    While staying as the guest of a factory owner in pre-First World War France, Stephen Wraysford embarks on a passionate affair with Isabelle, the wife of his host. The affair changes them both for e...

    - Google
  27. 27 . Small Island by Andrea Levy

    Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be receive...

  28. 28 . Oranges are not the only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

    Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a novel by Jeanette Winterson published in 1985, which she subsequently adapted into a BBC television drama. It is a bildungsroman about a lesbian girl who grows u...

  29. 29 . Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

    Bridget Jones's Diary is a 1996 novel by Helen Fielding. Written in the form of a personal diary, the novel chronicles a year in the life of Bridget Jones, a thirty-something single working woman l...

  30. 30 . Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

    Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a spy novel by John le Carré, first published in 1974. It is the first volume of a three-book series informally known as The Karla Trilogy, followed by The Honourabl...

  31. 31 . An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

    It is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono, an aging painter, who looks back on his life and how he has lived it. He notices how his once great reputation has faltered since...

  32. 32 . Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

    Sephy Hadley and Callum McGregor are two young people in love. But Sephy is a Cross, daughter of a government minister, and Callum is a Nought. In their world, Crosses and Noughts cannot be friends...

    - Google
  33. 33 . The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

    In eighteenth-century Germany, the impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the Romantic poet Novalis seeks his father's permission to wed his true philosophy — a plain, simple c...

  34. 34 . Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn

    First published in 2006, Mother’s Milk is the fourth novel in the critically acclaimed Patrick Melrose series. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize that year and won the 2007 Prix Femina Étr...

    - Google
  35. 35 . The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst

    A literary sensation and bestseller both in England and America, The Swimming-Pool Library is an enthralling, darkly erotic novel of homosexuality before the scourge of AIDS; an elegy, possessed of...

    - Google
  36. 36 . The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher

    Shifting in time, the novel tells the story of Penelope Keeling, the daughter of unconventional parents (an artist father and his much-younger French wife), examining her past and her relationships...

  37. 37 . The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi

    "My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost..."The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is dreamy teenager Karim, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience t...

    - Google
  38. 38 . High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

    High Fidelity is a 1995 British novel by Nick Hornby. It was adapted into a 2000 film directed by Stephen Frears and starring John Cusack. It also served as the basis for a 2006 Broadway musical of...

  39. 39 . Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess

    Earthly Powers is a panoramic saga of the 20th century by Anthony Burgess first published in 1980. On one level it is a parody of a "blockbuster" novel, with the 81-year-old hero, Kenneth Toomey (a...

  40. 40 . The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

    Jeanette Winterson’s novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirm...

    - Google
  41. 41 . Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

    What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first brea...

    - Google
  42. 42 . Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K Rowling

    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, published on July 8, 2000. The book attracted additional attention because of a pre...

  43. 43 . Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

    A combined love story and philosophical meditation on the body as a physical phenomenon thrusts the reader into the life of a married woman and her erotic relationship with an unidentified lover wh...

    - Google
  44. 44 . Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

    A kind of detective story, relating a cranky amateur scholar's search for the truth about Gustave Flaubert, and the obsession of this detective whose life seems to oddly mirror those of Flaubert's ...

    - Google
  45. 45 . The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble

  46. 46 . The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

    His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman comprising Northern Lights (1995, published as The Golden Compass in North America), The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spygla...

  47. 47 . Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K Rowling

    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling.

  48. 48 . The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a 2003 novel by British writer Mark Haddon. It won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First B...

  49. 49 . G. by John Berger

    G. is a 1972 novel by John Berger. The novel's setting is pre-First World War Europe, and its protagonist, named "G.", is a Don Juan or Casanova-like lover of women who gradually comes to political...

  50. 50 . The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis

    The Old Devils is a novel by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1986. The novel won the Booker Prize. Alun Weaver, a notable but obnoxious author, returns to his native Wales with his wife Rhianno...

  51. 51 . In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul

    In a Free State is a short story by V. S. Naipaul. It was published in 1971 as one of three short stories within a book of the same name, but is by far the longest. Surrounding them is the narrator...

  52. 52 . Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K Rowling

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, released on 16 July 2005, is the sixth of seven novels from British author J. K. Rowling's popular Harry Potter series. Set during Harry Potter's sixth year ...

  53. 53 . Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban by J. K Rowling

    Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third installment in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The book was published on 8 July 1999. The novel won the 1999 Whitbread Book A...

  54. 54 . Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets by J. K Rowling

    Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second instalment in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizar...

  55. 55 . Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K Rowling

    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth instalment in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The novel features Harry Potter's struggles through his fifth year at Hogwarts...

  56. 56 . The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie

    The Moor's Last Sigh is a 1995 novel by Salman Rushdie. Set in the Indian city of Bombay (or "Mumbai") and Cochin (or "Kochi"), it is the first major work that Rushdie produced after the The Satani...

  57. 57 . The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

    The Unconsoled (1995) is a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Cheltenham Prize. It is about Ryder, a famous pianist who arrives in a central European city to perform a concert. However, he appe...

  58. 58 . The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

    On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There's an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage...

    - Google
  59. 59 . The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend

    The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3⁄4 is the first book in Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series. Friday January 2nd I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing 'My ...

    - Google
  60. 60 . Old Filth by Jane Gardam

    Sir Edward Feathers has had a brilliant career, from his early days as a lawyer in Southeast Asia, where he earned the nickname Old Filth (FILTH being an acronym for Failed In London Try Hong Kong)...

    - Google
  61. 61 . Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn

    In the deep south of France, Patrick Melrose has the run of his parents' house and magical garden, and the company of his vivid imagination. Yet his tyrannical father rules this world with consider...

    - Google
  62. 62 . At Last by Edward St Aubyn

    A New York Times Notable Book of 2012 One of The Telegraph's Best Fiction Books 2011 One of Esquire's Best Books of 2012 One of TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2012 Here, from the writer described b...

    - Google
  63. 63 . Some Hope by Edward St Aubyn

    Some Hope, the third installment in Edward St. Aubyn's wonderful, wry, and profound Patrick Melrose Cycle, is centered on a dinner party, attended by the illustrious and profane elite of British so...

    - Google
  64. 64 . Bad News by Edward St Aubyn

    THE SECOND PATRICK MELROSE NOVEL. Twenty-two years old and in the grip of a massive addiction, Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father’s ashes. Over the course of a weeke...

    - Google
  65. 65 . The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans

    His name is Tom Booker. His voice can calm wild horses, his touch can heal broken spirits. And Annie Graves has traveled across a continent to the Booker ranch in Montana, desperate to heal her inj...

    - Google
  66. 66 . Last Orders by Graham Swift

    Last Orders is a 1996 Booker Prize-winning novel by British author Graham Swift. The story makes much use of flashbacks to tell the convoluted story of the relationships between a group of war v...

  67. 67 . The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch

    Bradley Pearson, an unsuccessful novelist in his late fifties, has finally left his dull office job as an Inspector of Taxes. Bradley hopes to retire to the country, but predatory friends and relat...

    - Google
  68. 68 . Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage

  69. 69 . Sandman by Neil Gaiman

  70. 70 . The Children of Men by P. D. James

    The Children of Men begins in England in 2021, in a world where all human males have become sterile and no child will be born again. The final generation has turned twenty-five, and civilization is...

    - Google
  71. 71 . Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer

    Kane and Abel is a 1979 novel by British author Jeffrey Archer. The title and story is a play on the Biblical brothers, Cain and Abel. Released in the United Kingdom in 1979 and in the United State...

  72. 72 . The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin

    This entirely new edition brings together all of Philip Larkin’s poems. In addition to those that appear in Collected Poems (1988) and Early Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from...

    - Google
  73. 73 . Collected Stories by Raymond Chandler

    A complete collection of short fiction by the creator of Philip Marlowe includes stories such as "Blackmailers Don't Shoot," "The Pencil," and "English Summer."

    - Google
  74. 74 . Brick Lane by Monica Ali

    Nazneen finds herself married off to a man twice her age and moved to London, where she meets a younger man involved in radical politics and begins to wonder if she has a say in her own destiny.

    - Google
  75. 75 . Waterland by Graham Swift

    Waterland is a 1983 novel by British author Graham Swift. It won the Guardian Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. (Swift won this prize in 1996 with his novel Last Orders). It i...

  76. 76 . Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker

    A captivating first novel of love and madness, Hallucinating Foucault tells of a devoted reader's quest to find and liberate Paul Michel, enfant terrible of French Letters, who is schizophrenic and...

    - Google
  77. 77 . The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene

    The Honorary Consul is a British thriller novel by Graham Greene, published in 1973. It was one of the author's own favourite works. The title is a reference to the diplomatic position known as an ...

  78. 78 . Under the Skin by Michel Faber

    Hailed as "original and unsettling, an Animal Farm for the new century" (The Wall Street Journal), this first novel lingers long after the last page has been turned. Described as a "fascinating psy...

    - Google
  79. 79 . Shame by Salman Rushdie

    Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel, published in 1983. This book was written out of a desire to approach the problem of "artificial" (other-made) country divisions, their residents' complicity, ...

  80. 80 . House Mother Normal by B. S. Johnson

    House Mother Normal (subtitle - "A Geriatric Comedy") is a novel by the experimental writer B. S. Johnson. As is typical of Johnson's work the novel is written in an unorthodox style.

  81. 81 . The Enigma of Arrival by V. S. Naipaul

    The Enigma of Arrival: A Novel in Five Sections is a 1987 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul. Mostly an autobiography, the book is composed of five sections that reflect the growing familiarity...

  82. 82 . The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

    The Cement Garden is a 1978 novel by Ian McEwan. It was adapted into a 1993 film of the same name by Andrew Birkin, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Andrew Robertson.

  83. 83 . The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt

    From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Possession: a deeply affecting story of a singular family. When children’s book author Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Phi...

    - Google
  84. 84 . Indigo by Marina Warner

    Indigo is a novel written by Marina Warner, published by Simon & Schuster in 1992 (ISBN 0-671-70156-8). It is a modernized and altered retelling of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Within the nov...

  85. 85 . The Virgin in the Garden by A. S. Byatt

    The Virgin in the Garden is a 1978 realist novel by English novelist A. S. Byatt. Set during the same year as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the novel revolves around a play about Elizabeth ...

  86. 86 . Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

    Sexing the Cherry (1989) is a novel by Jeanette Winterson. Set in 17th century London, Sexing the Cherry is about the journeys of a mother, known as The Dog Woman, and her protégé, Jordan. They ...

  87. 87 . What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe

    What a Carve Up! is a satirical novel by Jonathan Coe, published in the UK by Viking Press in April 1994. It was published in the United States by Alfred A Knopf in January 1995 under the title The...

  88. 88 . Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard

    Empire of the Sun is a 1984 novel by English writer J. G. Ballard; it was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Like Ballard's earlier short stor...

  89. 89 . Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor

    Blaming is the last novel by Elizabeth Taylor. It was first published, posthumously, in 1976. Amy's husband dies while she is on a cruise, and she is befriended by Martha, an awkward young America...

  90. 90 . Legend by David Gemmell

    Legend is a fantasy novel by British writer David Gemmell, published in 1984. It established him as a major fantasy novelist and created the character of Druss, who would appear in several subsequ...

  91. 91 . Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd

    Hawksmoor is a 1985 novel by the English writer Peter Ackroyd. It won Best Novel at the 1985 Whitbread Awards and the Guardian Fiction Prize. It tells the parallel stories of Nicholas Dyer, who bui...

  92. 92 . A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

    A Pale View of Hills (1982) is the first novel by Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. It won the 1982 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. He received a £1000 advance from publishers Faber and F...

  93. 93 . Arcadia by Jim Crace

    Victor, an eighty-year-old multimillionaire, surveys his empire from the remoteness of his cloud-capped penthouse. Expensively insulated from the outside world, he nonetheless finds that memories o...

    - Google
  94. 94 . Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

    Quartet in Autumn is a novel by British novelist Barbara Pym, first published in 1977. It was highly praised and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the top literary prize in the UK. This was conside...

  95. 95 . Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

    Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a humorous detective novel by English writer Douglas Adams, first published in 1987. It is described by the author on its cover as a "thumping good detect...

  96. 96 . On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin

    On the Black Hill is a novel by Bruce Chatwin published in 1982 and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for that year. In 1987 it was made into a film, directed by Andrew Grieve.

  97. 97 . The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

    The Ghost Road is a novel by Pat Barker, first published in 1995 and winner of the Booker Prize. It is the third volume of a trilogy that follows the fortunes of shell-shocked British army officers...

  98. 98 . Bring Up the Bodies: A Novel by Hilary Mantel

    Winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2012 Costa Book of the Year Award The sequel to Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Wolf Hall delves into t...

    - Google
  99. 99 . Collected Poems of Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes

    Edward James Hughes was an English poet and children's writer, known as Ted Hughes. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984...

  100. 100 . Fifty Shades of Grey: by E L James

    When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is star...

    - Google
  101. 101 . Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene

    With Sancho Panza, a deposed Communist mayor, his faithful Rocinate, an antiquated motorcar, Monsignor Quixote roams through modern-day Spain in a brilliant picaresque fable. Like Cervantes' classi...

    - Google
  102. 102 . The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta

    The Bride Price is a 1975 novel (first published in the UK by Allison & Busby and in the USA by George Braziller) by Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. It concerns, in part, the problems of women in p...

  103. 103 . Guerrillas by V. S. Naipaul

    Guerrillas is a 1975 novel by V. S. Naipaul. The book is set on an unnamed, remote Caribbean island populated by a mix of ethnicities, but dominated by post-colonial British. Probably the island i...

  104. 104 . Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

    Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 children's book by Salman Rushdie. It was Rushdie's first novel after The Satanic Verses. It is a phantasmagorical story set in a city so old and ruinous tha...

  105. 105 . The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris May Lessing

    The Memoirs of a Survivor is a dystopian novel by Nobel Prize-winner Doris Lessing. It was first published in 1974 by Octagon Press. It was made into a film in 1981, starring Julie Christie and Nig...

  106. 106 . Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

    Mattie Gokey has a word for everything. She collects words, stores them up as a way of fending off the hard truths of her life, the truths that she can't write down in stories. The fresh pain of he...

  107. 107 . Second-class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta

    Adah, a woman from the Ibo tribe, moves to England to live with her Nigerian student husband. She soon discovers that life for a young Nigerian woman living in London in the 1960s is grim. Rejected...

    - Google
  108. 108 . Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

    Romantic novelist Edith Hope is staying in a hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva, where her friends have advised her to retreat following an unfortunate incident. There she meets other English visit...

  109. 109 . Wise Children by Angela Carter

    Wise Children follows the fortunes of the Chance twins, Dora and Nora, taking in the story of their show business family — the Hazards — over the past century. Born illegitimately, spurned by their...

  110. 110 . Riders by Jilly Cooper

    Riders is an international best-selling novel written by the English author Jilly Cooper. It is the first of a series of romance novels known as the Rutshire Chronicles, which are set in the ficti...

  111. 111 . American Gods by Neil Gaiman

    The storm was coming….Shadow spent three years in prison, keeping his head down, doing his time. All he wanted was to get back to the loving arms of his wife and to stay out of trouble for the rest...

    - Google
  112. 112 . V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

    V for Vendetta is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published, starting in 1982, in black-and-white as an o...

  113. 113 . The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson

    Introducing Tracy Beaker, 10-year-old girl-wonder and the daughter of a famous Hollywood actress . . . sort of. Tracy Beaker’s not exactly sure what her mother does, because Tracy has been in foste...

    - Google
  114. 114 . Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

    Home Fire (2017) is the seventh novel by Kamila Shamsie. It reimagines Sophocles's play Antigone unfolding among British Muslims. The novel follows the Pasha family: twin siblings Aneeka and Parvai...

  115. 115 . Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

    Young Willie Beech is evacuated to the country as Britain stands on the brink of the Second World War. A sad, deprived child, he slowly begins to flourish under the care of old Tom Oakley - but his...

    - Google
  116. 116 . The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy

    Catch up on Mildred Hubble’s magical adventures at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches with these reissued editions featuring energetic new covers. Mildred Hubble is starting her first year at Miss C...

    - Google
  117. 117 . We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

    This is an appealing big-format paperback version of the 1989 Smarties Book Prize winner. Beautifully written and illustrated, the favourite children's rhyme is ideal for sharing with groups of chi...

    - Google
  118. 118 . The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye

    This sweeping epic set in 19th-century India begins in the foothills of the towering Himalayas and follows a young Indian-born orphan as he's raised in England and later returns to India where he f...

    - Google
  119. 119 . Golden Child by Claire Adam

    A new novel from Sarah Jessica Parker's imprint, SJP for Hogarth: a deeply affecting debut novel set in Trinidad, following the lives of a family as they navigate impossible choices about scarcity,...

    - Google
  120. 120 . The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson

    Happy Birthday, Gruffalo! A new, limited edition of The Gruffalo, the nation's favourite picture book. Fifteen years after it was first published, the award-winning story of a clever little mouse o...

    - Google
  121. 121 . Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

    After the death of the uncle who had been his guardian, fourteen-year-old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's dangerous work for Britain's intelligence agency, MI6.

    - Google
  122. 122 . The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

    The Forty Rules of Love is a novel written by Turkish author Elif Shafak, The book was published in March 2009. It is about Maulana Jalal-Ud-Din, known as Rumi and his spiritual teacher Shams Tabri...

  123. 123 . Shogun by James Clavell

    An explorer in seventeenth-century Japan, ambitious Englishman Blackthorne encounters the powerful and power-hungry Lord Toranaga and Catholic convert Lady Mariko. Reissue.

    - Google
  124. 124 . Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

    A brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration. Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't ...

    - Google
  125. 125 . Capital by John Lanchester

    Residents of Pepys Road in London receive odd, anonymous postcards demanding “We Want What You Have” during the financial meltdown of 2008 in this new novel from the best-selling author of The Debt...

    - Google
  126. 126 . The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

    THE NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY - Book 1 Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the basis of the HBO TV show, and its proprietor Precious Ramotswe, Bo...

    - Google
  127. 127 . The Plantagenet Saga by Jean Plaidy

    -
  128. 128 . The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas

    It is a dream of electrifying eroticism and inexplicable violence, recounted by a young woman to her analyst, Sigmund Freud. It is a horrifying yet restrained narrative of the Holocaust. It is a se...

    - Google
  129. 129 . A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

    Set during the French Revolution, this "riveting historical novel" ("The New Yorker") is the story of three young provincials who together helped destroy a way of life and, in the process, destroye...

    - Google
  130. 130 . Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

    All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, Mrs. Palfrey strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer, Ludovic Meyer. Fate brings them together after she has an accident ou...

  131. 131 . The BFG by Roald Dahl

    When Sophie is snatched from her orphanage bed by the BFG (Big Friendly Giant), she fears she will be eaten. But the two join forces to vanquish the nine other far less gentle giants who threaten t...

  132. 132 . The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories by Angela Carter

    From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual...

    - Google
  133. 133 . Good Omens by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman

    Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990) is a World Fantasy Award nominated novel written in collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The book is ...

  134. 134 . Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

    Heat and Dust (1975) is a novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala which won the Booker Prize in 1975. The events of the story take place in India, during the periods of the British Raj in the 1920s and th...

  135. 135 . Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

    Moon Tiger is a 1987 novel by Penelope Lively which spans the time before, during and after World War II. The novel won the 1987 Booker Prize. It is written from multiple points of view and moves b...

  136. 136 . Holiday by Stanley Middleton

    Holiday is a Booker Prize-winning novel by English author Stanley Middleton. The novel revolves around Edwin Fisher, a lecturer who takes a holiday at a seaside resort. The work takes place enti...

  137. 137 . The Finkler Question: A Novel by Howard Jacobson

    Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disappointed BBC worker, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a pric...

    - Google
  138. 138 . The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by Roald Dahl

    Seven superb stories, from the world's no. 1 storyteller Meet the boy who can talk to animals and the man who can see with his eyes closed. And find out about the treasure buried deep underground. ...

    - Google
  139. 139 . Saville by David Storey

    Saville is a Booker Prize-winning novel by English author David Storey. The novel centers around Colin, a young boy growing up in the fictional Yorkshire mining village of Saxton during WWII and...

  140. 140 . Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

    Girl, Woman, Other is the eighth novel written by Bernardine Evaristo, published in 2019 by Hamish Hamilton. It follows the lives of 12 characters in the United Kingdom over the course of several d...

  141. 141 . Being Dead by Jim Crace

    Being Dead is a novel by the English writer Jim Crace, published in 1999. Its principal characters are married zoologists Joseph and Celice and their daughter Syl. The story tells of how Joseph an...

  142. 142 . Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

    Offshore (1979) is a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. It won the Booker Prize for that year. It recalls her time spent on boats in Battersea by the Thames. The novel centralizes around the idea of lim...

  143. 143 . A Perfect Spy by John le Carré

    A Perfect Spy (1986) by British author John le Carré is a novel about the mental and moral dissolution of a high level secret agent.

  144. 144 . Rites of Passage by William Golding

    To the Ends of the Earth is a trilogy of novels by William Golding, consisting of Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire down Below (1989).

  145. 145 . Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth

    Sacred Hunger is a historical novel by Barry Unsworth first published in 1992. It was joint winner of the Booker Prize that year, sharing the position with Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. ...

  146. 146 . Dart by Alice Oswald

    -
  147. 147 . The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak

    Populated with vibrant characters, The Bastard of Istanbul is the story of two families, one Turkish and one Armenian American, and their struggle to forge their unique identities against the backd...

    - Google
  148. 148 . An Accidental Man by Iris Murdoch

    A scintillating novel of fate, accidents, and moral dilemmas Set in the time of the Vietnam War, this story concerns the plight of a young American, happily installed in a perfect job in England, e...

    - Google
  149. 149 . The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge

    The Bottle Factory Outing is a 1974 novel written by Beryl Bainbridge, it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize that year and won the Guardian Fiction Prize. It is also listed as one of the 100 grea...

  150. 150 . The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis

    Charles Highway, a precociously intelligent and highly sexed teenager, is determined to sleep with an older woman before he turns twenty. Rachel fits the bill perfectly and Charles plans his seduct...

    - Google
  151. 151 . The Hearts and Lives of Men: A Novel by Fay Weldon

    It’s 1960s London, and the sexual revolution is in full swing in Fay Weldon’s enduring story of lust, marriage, family, art, avarice, ambition, betrayal, and true love Clifford Wexford and Helen La...

    - Google
  152. 152 . The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch

    Full of suspense, humor, and symbolism, this magnificently crafted and magical novel replays biblical and medieval themes in contemporary London. An attempt by the sharp, feral, and uncommonly inte...

    - Google
  153. 153 . The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter

    For a year, the murder of Mrs. Yvonne Harrison at her home in Oxfordshire had baffled the Thames Valley CID. The manner of her death--her naked handcuffed body left lying in bed--matched her reputa...

    - Google
  154. 154 . Levels of Life by Julian Barnes

    Part history, part fiction, part memoir, Levels of Life is a powerfully personal and unforgettable book, and an immediate classic on the subject of grief. Levels of Life opens in the nineteenth cen...

    - Google
  155. 155 . Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

    Night Watch is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 29th book in his Discworld series, published in 2002. The protagonist of the novel is Sir Samuel Vimes, commander of the Ankh-M...

  156. 156 . On Beauty by Zadie Smith

    On Beauty is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith. It takes its title from an essay by Elaine Scarry (On Beauty and Being Just). The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American f...

  157. 157 . Books of Blood by Clive Barker

    Five stories deal with an ax murderer, a race with death, a telekinetic killer, a terrifying demon, and a murderous ape.

    - Google
  158. 158 . The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

    The Silence of the Girls is a 2018 novel by English novelist Pat Barker. It recounts the events of the Iliad, chiefly from the point of view of Briseis.

  159. 159 . The Constant Gardener by John le Carré

    The Constant Gardener is a 2001 novel by British author John le Carré. The novel tells the story of Justin Quayle, a British diplomat whose activist wife is murdered. Believing there is something b...

  160. 160 . Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller

    Notes on a Scandal (What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal in the U.S.) is a 2003 novel by Zoë Heller. It is about a female teacher at a London comprehensive school who begins an affair with an...

  161. 161 . Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

    An apocalyptic cult member carries out a gas attack on a rush-hour metro, but what links him to a jazz buff in downtown Tokyo? Or to a Mongolian gangster, a woman on a holy mountain who talks to a ...

    - Google
  162. 162 . Harvest by Jim Crace

    Harvest is a novel by Jim Crace. Crace has stated that Harvest would be his final novel.Harvest was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize, short...

  163. 163 . Coraline by Neil Gaiman

    Coraline is a dark fantasy children's novella by British author Neil Gaiman, published in 2002 by Bloomsbury and Harper Collins. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula...

  164. 164 . Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

    a breathtaking story of families divided, love lost and found, and the mysteries of fate.

    -
  165. 165 . Light by M. John Harrison

    The stories of three people--modern-day Michael Kearney who plays a part in a discovery that will make interstellar travel possible; Seria Mau Genlicher, a spaceship pilot modified to interact dire...

    - Google
  166. 166 . The Siege by Helen Dunmore

    The Siege is a historical novel by the English writer Helen Dunmore. It is set in Leningrad just before and during the Siege of Leningrad by German forces in World War II.

  167. 167 . Darkmans by Nicola Barker

    Darkmans is a novel by Nicola Barker written in 2007. The 838 page book takes place in Ashford, in Kent and focuses on a father-son pair named Daniel and Kane Beede. The book was a finalist for the...

  168. 168 . The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

    #1 New York Times bestselling author Frederick Forsyth’s unforgettable novel of a conspiracy, a killer, and the one man who can stop him… He is known only as “The Jackal”—a cold, calculating assass...

    - Google
  169. 169 . Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

    Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the first novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. An alternate history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars, it is based on the premis...

  170. 170 . The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker

    The Eye in the Door is the second novel in Pat Barker's classic Regeneration trilogy. WINNER OF THE 1993 GUARDIAN FICTION PRIZE. London, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in the Ministr...

    - Google
  171. 171 . Thursbitch by Alan Garner

    Thursbitch is a novel by English writer Alan Garner, named after the valley in the Pennines of England where the action occurs (also listed in the 1841 OS map as "Thursbatch"). It was published in ...

  172. 172 . Swing Time by Zadie Smith

    Swing Time is a novel by British writer Zadie Smith, released in November 2016. The story takes place in London, New York and West Africa, and focuses on two girls who can tap dance.

  173. 173 . Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

    The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness is a series of fantasy books by Michelle Paver, her first books for children. Set 6000 years ago in the pre-agricultural Stone Age, the Chronicles are about a boy...

  174. 174 . Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

    Boy, Snow, Bird is a 2014 novel by British author Helen Oyeyemi. The novel, Oyeyemi's fifth, was a loose retelling of the fairytale Snow White. Oyeyemi also cited the novel Passing as an inspiratio...

  175. 175 . The Night Manager by John le Carré

    The Night Manager is an espionage/detective novel by John le Carré, published in 1993. It is his first post-Cold War novel, detailing an undercover operation to nab an international criminal.

  176. 176 . If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor

    If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is author Jon McGregor's first novel, first published by Bloomsbury in 2002. It centres around a day in the life of a suburban British street, with the plot al...

  177. 177 . Staying Alive by Neil Astley

  178. 178 . The PowerBook by Jeanette Winterson

  179. 179 . War Music by Christopher Logue

  180. 180 . The Damned Utd by David Peace

    The Damned Utd is a novel by British author David Peace which presents a fictionalised account of Brian Clough's brief spell as manager of Leeds United football club in 1974.

  181. 181 . Matilda by Roald Dahl

    Matilda is a book by British writer Roald Dahl. It was published in 1988 by Jonathan Cape in London, with 232 pages and illustrations by Quentin Blake. It was adapted as an audio reading by actress...

  182. 182 . A Sight for Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendell

    A Sight For Sore Eyes is a psychological thriller by British crime-writer Ruth Rendell.

  183. 183 . Born Yesterday by Gordon Burn

  184. 184 . The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

    The Enchantress of Florence is a novel by Salman Rushdie published in 2008. According to Rushdie this is his "most researched book" which required "Years and years of reading".

  185. 185 . The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

    The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a 2013 novel by British author Neil Gaiman. The work was first published on 18 June 2013 through William Morrow and Company and follows an unnamed man who return...

  186. 186 . The Emperor's Babe by Bernardine Evaristo

  187. 187 . A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

    A God in Ruins, the ninth novel by Kate Atkinson, was published in 2015. The main character, Teddy Todd is the younger brother of Ursula Todd, the protagonist in Atkinson's 2013 novel, Life After L...

  188. 188 . The Bird of Night by Susan Hill

    The Bird of Night (ISBN 0241104092) is a novel by Susan Hill. It won the 1972 Whitbread Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Susan Hill commented in 2006: A novel of mine was shortliste...

  189. 189 . Music and Silence by Rose Tremain

    Music and Silence is a novel written by the English author Rose Tremain. It is set in and around the court of Christian IV of Denmark in the years 1629 and 1630.

  190. 190 . The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch

    -
  191. 191 . Saturday by Ian McEwan

    In his triumphant new novel, Ian McEwan, the bestselling author of Atonement, follows an ordinary man through a Saturday whose high promise gradually turns nightmarish. Henry Perowne–a neurosurgeon...

  192. 192 . Behind of the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

    Behind the Scenes at the Museum is the first novel of Kate Atkinson. The book covers the experiences of Ruby Lennox from a middle-class English family.

  193. 193 . Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin

    -
  194. 194 . The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

    The Book of Strange New Things is a 2014 science fiction novel by Dutch-born author Michel Faber. The work was first published in the United States on October 28, 2014 and concerns an English pasto...

  195. 195 . Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge

    Injury Time is a novel by English author Beryl Bainbridge and first published in 1977 by Duckworth. It won the 1977 Whitbread Book of the Year Award.

  196. 196 . English Passengers by Matthew Kneale

  197. 197 . Young Shoulders by John Wain

    Young Shoulders is a 1982 novel by John Wain. It portrays incompatibility in a marital relationship and how such a flawed marriage affects the children born out of it.

  198. 198 . Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley

  199. 199 . The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke

    The Chymical Wedding is a 1989 novel by Lindsay Clarke about the intertwined lives of six people in two different eras. The book includes themes of alchemy, the occult, fate, passion, and obsession.

  200. 200 . Quarantine by Jim Crace

    Quarantine is a novel by Jim Crace. It was the winner of the 1997 Whitbread Novel Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction the same year.

  201. 201 . The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald

    The Beginning of Spring is a novel by British author Penelope Fitzgerald. Set in Moscow in 1913, it tells the story of a Moscow-born son of a British emigre manufacturer whose Britain-born wife has...

  202. 202 . The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam

    -
  203. 203 . Twelve Bar Blues by Patrick Neate

    Twelve Bar Blues is a 2001 novel by Patrick Neate, and the winner of that year's Whitbread novel award.

  204. 204 . Leading the Cheers by Justin Cartwright

    -
  205. 205 . Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge

    -
  206. 206 . Time's Arrow by Martin Amis

    Time's Arrow: or The Nature of the Offence (1991) is a novel by Martin Amis. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize (1991).

  207. 207 . The Comforts of Madness by Paul Sayer

    -
  208. 208 . Spies by Michael Frayn

  209. 209 . The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

    The Child in Time (1987) is a novel by Ian McEwan. It won the Whitbread Novel Award for that year. It concerns Stephen, an author of children's books, and his wife two years after the kidnapping of...

  210. 210 . Pure by Andrew Miller

    Jean-Baptiste Baratte, an engineer of modest origin, arrives in the city in 1785, charged by the King’s minister with emptying the overflowing cemetery of Les Innocents, a ancient site whose stench...

    - Google