Among the many books we've read over the years, these ones have particularly caught our imagination.
Fiction
Segun Afolabi Goodbye Lucille
Monica Ali Brick Lane
Nadeen Aslam Maps for Lost Lovers
Richard Beard Dry Bones
Amy Bloom Away
Joanna Briscoe Sleep With Me
Giles Coren Winkler
Douglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus
Jim Crace The Pesthouse
Michael Dibdin Medusa
Penelope Fitzgerald The Blue Flower
Jonathan Franzen The Corrections
Sarah Hall Haweswater
Sarah Hall The Carhullan Army
Sarah Hall The Electric Michelangelo
William Golding To the Ends of the Earth
Andrew Sean Greer The Story of a Marriage
Zoe Heller Notes on a Scandal
Peter Hobbs The Short Day Dying
Alan Hollinghurst The Line of Beauty
Susanna Jones The Earthquake Bird
Manju Kapur A Married Woman
J Robert Lennon Mailman
David Lodge Author, Author (and Colm Toibin's The Master)
Cormac McCarthy The Road
Thomas McGuane The Cadence of Grass
Andrew Martin The Blackpool Highflyer
Andrew Martin The Bobby Dazzlers
Valerie Martin Property
Clare Messud The Emperor's Children
Jenni Mills Crow Stone
Joseph O'Connor Redemption Falls
Andrew O'Hagan Be Near Me
Sonia Overall A Likeness
David Peace The Damned Utd
Matthew Pearl The Dante Club
Walker Percy The Moviegoer
Karen Powell Catching the Light
John Preston The Dig
James Salter Cassada
Jane Smiley Good Faith
Mark Haskell Smith Moist
Donna Tartt The Little Friend
Mirian Toews A Complicated Kindness
Willy Vlautin Northline
Erica Wagner Seizure
Chris Ware Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
Paul Watkins In the Blue Light of African Dreams
Bill Watterson The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
Mark Wernham Martin Martin's on the Other Side
Tim Winton Breath
Richard Yates Revolutionary Road
Translated fiction
Chinghiz Aïtmatov Jamilia
David Albahari Götz and Meyer
Alaa al-Aswany The Yacoubian Building
Eileen Chang Lust, Caution
Gyorgy Dragoman The White King
WF Hermans Beyond Sleep
WF Hermans The Darkroom of Damocles
Alexander Ikonnikov Lizka and her Men
Etgar Keret The Nimrod Flip-Out
Natsuo Kirino Grotesque
Natsuo Kirino Out
Andrey Kurkov Death and the Penguin
Carmen Laforet Nada
Asa Larsson The Savage Altar
Bjorn Larsson Long John Silver
Erwin Mortier Shutterspeed
Per Petterson Out Stealing Horses
Maria Peura At the Edge of Light
Anne B Ragde Berlin Poplars
Elke Schmitter Mrs Sartoris
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö The Man Who Went Up In Smoke
Josef Skvorecky The Engineer of Human Souls
Iliya Troyanov The Collector of Worlds
Juan Gabriel Vasquez The Informers
Find out more about translated fiction
Short stories
William Boyd The Dream Lover
Michael Chabon McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales
Eileen Chang Lust, Caution
Charles d'Ambrosio The Dead Fish Museum
Peter Hobbs I Could Ride All Day in My Cool Blue Train
Panos Karnezis Little Infamies
Cate Kennedy Dark Roots
Margo Lanagan Black Juice
Nancy Lee Dead Girls
J Robert Lennon Pieces for the Left Hand
Thomas McGuane Gallatin Canyon
David Means The Secret Goldfish
Gina Ochsner People I Wanted To Be
Patrick O'Keeffe The Hill Road
Julie Orringer How to Breathe Underwater
Donald Ray Pollock Knockemstiff
Simon Robson The Separate Heart
Karen Russell St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
James Salter Last Night
George Saunders The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
Tim Winton The Turning
Find out more about short stories
Non-fiction
Anne Applebaum Gulag
Richard Askwith Feet in the Clouds
Phil Baines Penguin by Design
Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945
Joseph E Ellis Founding Brothers
Joseph E Ellis His Excellency George Washington
Fergus Fleming Barrow's Boys
Barry Forshaw The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction
Jonathan Franzen The Discomfort Zone
Vic Gatrell City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London
Stephen Glover (ed.) The Penguin Book of Journalism
Rebecca Gowers The Swamp of Death
Kitty Hauser Bloody Old Britain
Nicolette Jones The Plimsoll Sensation
Valerie Brown Lester Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens
Jeremy Lewis Penguin Special
Robert Macfarlane Mountains of the Mind
John McGahern Memoir
Alexander Masters Stuart: A Life Backwards
Tim Moore Do Not Pass Go
Mark Roseman The Past in Hiding
Ian Thomson Bonjour Blanc
Sarah Vowell The Partly-Cloudy Patriot
Gary Younge Stranger in a Strange Land
