by Alain Mabanckou
The Congolese writer says he was “trying to break the French language” with Broken Glass – a black comedy told by a disgraced teacher without much in the way of full stops or paragraph breaks.
As Mabanckou’s unreliable narrator munches his “bicycle chicken” and drinks his red wine, it becomes clear he has the history of Congo-Brazzaville and the wh.
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by Bob Dylan
Dylan’s reticence about his personal life is a central part of the singer-songwriter’s brand, so the gaps and omissions in this memoir come as no surprise.
The result is both sharp and dreamy, sliding in and out of different phases of Dylan’s career but rooted in his earliest days as a Woody Guthrie wannabe in New York City.
Fans are still waiting .
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by Hanya Yanagihara
This operatically harrowing American gay melodrama became an unlikely bestseller, and one of the most divisive novels of the century so far.
One man’s life is blighted by abuse and its aftermath, but also illuminated by love and friendship.
Some readers wept all night, some condemned it as titillating and exploitative, but no one could deny its pow.
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by Helen Dunmore
The Levin family battle against starvation in this novel set during the German siege of Leningrad.
Anna digs tank traps and dodges patrols as she scavenges for wood, but the hand of history is hard to escape.
Read the review
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by JK Rowling
A generation grew up on Rowling’s all-conquering magical fantasies, but countless adults have also been enthralled by her immersive world.
Book four, the first of the doorstoppers, marks the point where the series really takes off.
The Triwizard Tournament provides pace and tension, and Rowling makes her boy wizard look death in the eye for the fir.
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by Malcolm Gladwell
The New Yorker staff writer examines phenomena from shoe sales to crime rates through the lens of epidemiology, reaching his own tipping point, when he became a rock-star intellectual and unleashed a wave of quirky studies of contemporary society.
Two decades on, Gladwell is often accused of oversimplification and cherry picking, but his idiosyncra.
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by Nicola Barker
British fiction’s most anarchic author is as prolific as she is playful, but this freewheeling, visionary epic set around the Thames Gateway is her magnum opus.
Barker brings her customary linguistic invention and wild humour to a tale about history’s hold on the present, as contemporary Ashford is haunted by the spirit of a medieval jester.
Read t.
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by Nora Ephron
Perhaps better known for her screenwriting (Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, Heartburn), Ephron’s brand of smart theatrical humour is on best display in her essays.
Confiding and self-deprecating, she has a way of always managing to sound like your best friend – even when writing about her apartment on New York’s Upper West Side.
This wildly enjoyab.
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by Stieg Larsson
Radical journalist Mikael Blomkvist forms an unlikely alliance with troubled young hacker Lisbeth Salander as they follow a trail of murder and malfeasance connected with one of Sweden’s most powerful families in the first novel of the bestselling Millennium trilogy.
The high-level intrigue beguiled millions of readers, brought “Scandi noir” to pro.
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Which books are not British?
Great list but they are not all British.
Let the right one in, The hipnotist, etc.
Anita Shreve is an American novelist from the Boston MA area.
Her dad was a pilot and she travels a lot, so some of her novels are set in the UK (most are set in NH and ME), but she is NOT British.
Suzanne Collins, Erin Morgenstern and R.J.Palacio are not British.
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Which books have been shelved as contemporary-British-literature?
Books shelved as contemporary-british-literature:
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro Home Fi.. ,
Which British novels are best for Anglophiles?
Whether you’re a fan of the British style or simply enjoy stories that take are set in British society, contemporary British novels offer a diverse, thought-provoking selection fit for any Anglophile’s library.
Here are 12 must-read contemporary novels by British authors, most of which take place in England. 1.
I Let You Fall by Sara Downing .
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Which British novels take place in England?
Here are 12 must-read contemporary novels by British authors, most of which take place in England. 1.
I Let You Fall by Sara Downing After a terrible head injury leaves her in a coma, Eve Chapman finds herself trapped, unable to make her family and friends see or hear her, even though her soul is free to roam the hospital halls.
