Contemporary fiction Books 1240 results

Gore Vidal

A literary cause célèbre when first published in 1948, Gore Vidal's now-classic The City and the Pillar stands as a landmark novel of the gay experience Jim Willard, former high-school athlete and clean-cut boy-next-door, is haunted by the memory of a romantic adolescent encounter with his friend Bob Ford. As Jim pursues his first love, in awe of the very same masculinity he p...

Hanya Yanagihara

Over one million copies soldToo many broken hearts to countThe 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition'A book unlike any other' The Guardian'This novel challenged everything I thought I knew about love and friendship' Dua LipaThis exclusive 10th anniversary edition of A Little Life features artwork by acclaimed artists RF. Alvarez and Linus Borgo, painted in response to the book, ...

Kiran Desai

When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated, yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that only served to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her ...

T. J. Klune

'I loved it. It is like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket. Simply perfect' - V. E. Schwab, Sunday Times bestselling author of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil A cosy, enchanting story about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an uplifting, heart-warming queer fantasy from TJ Klune, a Sunday T...

Claire Adam

In the heart-aching new novel from the author of the award-winning Golden Child, a mother searches for the daughter she left behind a lifetime ago. ...

Patricia Lockwood

A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF SEPTEMBER 2025 THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS, WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE AND THE ONLY BOOK SHORTLISTED FOR BOTH THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE AND WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION The world might be in disarray, but for one young woman, the very weave of herself seems to have loosened. Time and memories pass straight through he...

Mona Awad

The highly-anticipated follow up to the viral sensation Bunny, a brilliantly written, laugh-out-loud funny, dark and delirious novel set in the Bunny-verse - a world that Margaret Atwood declared 'soooo genius'. In the cult classic novel Bunny, Samantha Heather Mackey, a lonely outsider student at a highly selective MFA program in New England, was first ostracised and then sed...

Andrew Miller

? Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 ? ? Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2025 ? ? Winner of the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2025 ? 'One of the best writers at work today' TELEGRAPH 'Has an uncanny beauty and depth... A novel that travels into the darkest places of history and the strangest corners of the human mind' GUARDIAN 'Money, class, love...

Jung Chang

THE LONG-AWAITED SEQUEL TO WILD SWANS, THE MULTI-MILLION COPY INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING SENSATION Jung Chang's Wild Swans was a book that defined a generation, an epic personal history of Jung, her mother and grandmother - 'three daughters of China'. The book opens in 1909 with her grandmother's birth - and foot-binding - when China was under the last emperor, moving through ...

Olga Tokarczuk

A woman settles in a remote Polish village. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the stories of its living and its dead. There's the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There's the man whose death - with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech - was an inter...

Haruki Murakami

A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a parable for these strange times. STEP INTO THE CITY... When a young man's girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he sets his heart on finding the imaginary city where her true self lives. His search will lead him to take a job in a remote library with mysteries of its...

John Boyne

Human life is governed by the elements - water, earth, fire and air. They are fundamental to our existence. They sustain us, but they also challenge us. In The Elements, John Boyne has created a vivid kaleidoscope to reflect that contradiction- a quartet of intertwined narratives, each providing a different perspective on cause and effect from the points of view of the enabler...

Rosie Hewlett

Praise for Rosie Hewlett 'Delightfully devastating' Bea Fitsgerald, author of Girl, Goddess, Queen 'A fiery and dramatic novel' Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne 'Vivid and powerful' Luna McNamara, author of Psyche and Eros You know her name, you know her story. Just not the right one... Within the depths of the Underworld the formidable snake-haired Gorgon has finally had en...

Hitomi Kanehara

Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS- Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of women's weird fiction. Rin is flying back from her honeymoon. She's madly in love with her husband, Shin, and the future looks rosy. Then Shin disappears to the bathroom while he thinks Rin is sleeping and she starts to imagine that he has gone to seduce the flight attendant. As her thoughts spiral out ...

Ottessa Moshfegh

Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS- Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of women's weird fiction. 'This is a story about what might happen when a woman takes charge... A glorious visceral mystery' The Times While on her daily walk with her dog in the woods near her home, Vesta comes across a chilling handwritten note. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. ...

Jewelle Gomez

Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS- Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of women's weird fiction. 'A groundbreaking work of Afrofuturism before the term was even coined' Guardian 'A lush, exciting, inspiring read' Sarah Waters In this radically reimagined vampire myth, the night hides many things... Louisiana, 1850. A young girl escapes slavery and is taken in by two myster...

Angela Carter

Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS- Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of women's weird fiction. 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 Kearney's circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist...

Jonathan Coe

'My comfort read: anything by Jonathan Coe' Bob Mortimer 'Coe channels his anger and frustration at the direction his country has taken, as well as his abiding love for it, into prose of enduring beauty' Guardian --- Post-university life doesn't suit Phyl. Time passes slowly, living with her parents and working a zero-hours contract at Heathrow Airport, while her budding pla...

Damian Barr

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2025A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK A BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2025 FOR THE GUARDIAN, THE OBSERVER, THE HERALD AND THE BBC'Crackles with creative rebellion' DOUGLAS STUART'immersive, intelligent, immensely sensual' ELIF SHAFAK'A novel that brims over with generosity and warmth' OBSERVERHe will stay like this forever, Robert's arm draped ...

Ali Smith

Ghosts don't exist. They don't. End of. Story, however. It is haunting. Everything tells it. It all starts when Petra and her little sister Patch hear a horrifying story from the past and find themselves making up a ghost. Is it imaginary? Is it real? Then it all starts again thirty years later when Petra, now estranged from Patch, finds a phantom horse kicking the furniture ...

Yoko Ogawa

Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS- Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of women's weird fiction. A lonely teenage girl falls in love with her foster-brother as she watches him leap from a high diving board into a pool - sparking an unspoken infatuation that draws out darker possibilities. A young woman records the daily moods of her pregnant sister in a diary, but rather tha...

Rosie Hewlett

You know her name, you know her story. Just not the right one... Within the depths of the Underworld the formidable snake-haired Gorgon has finally had enough. Tired of being eternally and unjustly brandished a villain, Medusa has found the courage to face her tragic past and speak out. Determined to expose the centuries of lies surrounding her name, Medusa gives unparalleled ...

Syou Ishida

**PRE-ORDER** THE BRAND NEW VOLUME IN THIS POPULAR SERIES ABOUT THE HEALING POWER OF CATS The highly anticipated new novel - The Kokoro Clinic for the Soul reopens in this delightful follow-up to the award-winning, bestselling Japanese novel We'll Prescribe You a Cat for fans of The Travelling Cat Chronicles and The Cat Who Saved Books It's time to revisit the Kokoro Clinic f...

A. Rae Dunlap

Death is only the beginning...?? ''Breathtaking ... A new talent [in] the field of gothic historical literature'' NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS ''Devilishly macabre ... As dark as a midnight graveyard'' PATRICE McDONOUGH ''Hauntingly gothic, intimately told, and wickedly, wonderfully grotesque'' MARIELLE THOMPSON *#1 BOOK OF THE MONTH - AMAZON EDITOR''S PICK* *A USA TODAY BESTSELLE...

Karl Ove Knausgaard

'Strikingly humane, unsettling, and wholly unique' Ferdia Lennon 'Ferociously readable. . . I still can't get enough' The Times If no one ever died, what would happen then? For several days, a bright new star in the sky above Norway has blazed over the restless lives of those below. Tove, an artist, is consumed by intense creativity as she spirals towards psychosis. Line fal...

Mai Mochizuki

In Japanese myth, cats are symbols of good luck. If you are kind to them, they'll return the favour one day. And if you are kind to the right cat, you might find yourself invited to a celestial cafe. The Full Moon Coffee Shop normally materialises on the night of the full moon -- with one exception every year. This Christmas, the sagacious cats open their doors once more to all...

Rie Qudan

Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of a radical sympathy toward criminals has become the norm - and a grand skyscraper in the heart of Tokyo is planned to house wrongdoers in compassionate comfort. Acclaimed architect Sara Machina has been tasked with designing the city's new centrepiece, but is riven by doubt. As she casts her mind to the terrible crime she e...

Jonas Hassen Khemiri

'One of the best novels I've ever read about the complexities of mixed heritage' New Yorker A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE SUMMER 'I really loved this book . . . a novel to sink into' New York Times 'Superb . . . one of those books you live inside and miss when it's over' Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost 'A moving appraisal of family, language, and the spiritual developm...

Kosoko Jackson

A picture is worth a thousand nightmares... The twisty and compelling adult dark fantasy debut from award-winning author, Kosoko Jackson. Struggling painter Lewis Dixon can't shake the feeling there's something powerful - and slightly disturbing - about his work. Especially when the British Museum begin to show a surprising interest in his most horrifying piece, a recreation ...

Ben Pester

"Plans for the expansion of the Capmeadow Business Park are in full swing - its mission is to become the greatest business park in the region. Tom Crowley, a mid-level employee, loses his daughter at 'bring your daughter to work day'. He raises the alarm, and his colleagues rush to help him find her. Eventually, after no sign of her is found, it transpires she was never there. ...