Listmania!
15 terrific literary novels, 2001-2008
AusterlitzAusterlitz by W. G. Sebald
Buy new: £6.96 / Used from: £4.45
[2001] A beautiful exploration of the long-lasting traces of the Holocaust.
Life of PiLife of Pi by Yann Martel
Buy new: £5.59 / Used from: £0.01
[2002] Weird, clever, surprising, compelling. A boy in a boat with a tiger.
Vernon God LittleVernon God Little by DBC Pierre
Buy new: £4.78 / Used from: £0.01
[2003] A prose rollercoaster, Catcher in the Rye reinvented.
The Plot Against AmericaThe Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £0.01
[2004] Roth is at his compelling and furious best in this counterfactual history.
GileadGilead by Marilynne Robinson
Buy new: £5.00 / Used from: £1.78
[2004] 24 years in the making. An exquisite, delightful and uplifting tale of an Iowa pastor.
SnowSnow by Orhan Pamuk
Buy new: £5.43 / Used from: £0.01
[2004] An evocative and haunting story of Turkish political strife from a Nobel prizewinner.
The MasterThe Master by Colm Toibin
Buy new: £5.97 / Used from: £0.01
[2004] A portrait of Henry James that is beautiful, poignant, moving and not just for James fans.
Never Let Me GoNever Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Buy new: £4.79 / Used from: £0.01
[2005] A philosophically troubling, emotionally devastating work of science fiction.
Slow ManSlow Man by J.M. Coetzee
Buy new: £5.26 / Used from: £1.09
[2005] A story of a man with one leg provides the framework for Coetzee's musings.
Arthur and GeorgeArthur and George by Julian Barnes
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £0.01
[2005] An enthralling and immaculate fictionalised double-biography of novelist Arthur Conan Doyle and his unlikely Parsee friend, George Edalji.
The SeaThe Sea by John Banville
Buy new: £3.99 / Used from: £0.01
[2005] A grim, poetic and heartrending portrayal of loss.
In the Country of MenIn the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £0.01
[2006] Matar's excellent debut evokes the murky underworld of Libyan politics from a child's perspective.
The RoadThe Road by Cormac McCarthy
Buy new: £2.99 / Used from: £2.50
[2006] Horrific, epic, unputdownable. A terrifying vision of the end of the world.
The ImpostorThe Impostor by Damon Galgut
Buy new: £8.59 / Used from: £1.90
[2008] A rich and suspenseful parable of the new South Africa.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Buy new: £4.76 / Used from: £0.64
[2008] A vibrant yet tragic saga of Dominican immigrants moving to the US.