To celebrate 100 years of public libraries in Bath, we’ve curated a Centenary Collection! We’ve chosen our favourite books published each year from 1924 – 2024.
Use the tabs below to explore each decade, borrow the books and read our reviews.
If you’re not sure which to read first, try our Centenary Book Sorter!
1920s
1924 – A Passage to India by E. M Forster
What did happen to Miss Quested in the Marabar Caves? This tantalizing question provides the intense drama of racial tension at the centre of Forster’s last and greatest novel.
After a mysterious incident during their visit to the caves, the charming Dr Aziz is accused of assaulting Adela Quested, a naive young Englishwoman new to India. As he is brought to trial, the fragile structure of Anglo-Indian relations collapses and the racism inherent in colonialism is exposed in all its ugliness -a theme which still has powerful, dangerous realities today.
1925 – The Great Gatsby by Scott F. Fitzgerald
It’s 1922 and New York is electric. A hotbed of jazz, glamour and scandal. The playground of the super-rich. And the new home of Nick Carraway, a Mid-Western man chasing his American dream.
For eighty dollars a month, Carraway finds himself the unlikely neighbour of his beautiful cousin Daisy Buchannan and a mysterious millionaire – Jay Gatsby.
From the shadow of Gatsby’s mansion, Carraway is drawn into the glittering, captivating world of the wealthy – their parties, their love affairs, and their lies. And as he watches his new friends, he writes their story. A tale of roaring excess, impossible love and the devastating, tragic consequences.
1926 – Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
Winnie-the-Pooh may be a bear of very little brain, but thanks to his friends Piglet, Eeyore and, of course, Christopher Robin, he’s never far from an adventure. In this story Pooh gets into a tight place, nearly catches a Woozle and heads off on an ‘expotition’ to the North Pole with the other animals.
1927 – Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes is not only the most famous character in crime fiction, but arguably the most famous character in all fiction. In sixty adventures that pit his extraordinary wits and courage against foreign spies, blackmailers, cultists, petty thieves, murderers, swindlers, policemen (both stupid and clever), and his arch-nemesis Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes, together with his faithful sidekick Doctor John H. Watson, proves himself to be not only the quintessential detective but also the most engaging and entertaining company any reader could ask for.
1928 – Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
Constance Chatterley is deeply unhappy as she is married to Clifford who is paralyzed below the waist. Oppressed by her dreary life, she finds refuge and regeneration in the arms of Mellors the game-keeper. But can she break out against the constraints of society, and yield to her instinctive desire for him?
1929 – A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different.
This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. But if only she had found the means to create, urges Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. In this classic essay, Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give a voice to those who have none.
Her message is simple: A woman must have a fixed income and a room of her own in order to have the freedom to create.
1930s
1930 – Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
In the years following the First World War a new generation emerges, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of twenties’ Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade – whether promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars.
In a quest for treasure, a favourite party occupation, a vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the fulfilment of unconscious desires.
1931 – The Story of Babar by Jean de Brunoff
In this book, readers meet Babar for the first time and learn how the little elephant is forced by fierce hunters to run away to the big city.
1932 – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Human beings, graded from intellectuals to manual workers, hatched from incubators and brought up in communal nurseries, learn by conditioning to accept their social destiny. The story develops around an unorthodox AlphaPlus, who visits a New Mexican Reservation and brings a savage back to London.
1933 – Thank You Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
Bertie Wooster has taken up the banjolele but the manager of the building in central London has issued an ultimatum to either give up the music or clear out. Even the faithful Jeeves threatens to leave so Bertie seeks refuge in the country.
1934 – Mary Poppins by P. J. Travers
The Banks children, Jane and Michael, change nannies just about as often as most people change their clothes. It’s not that they’re naughty, exactly — just awkward. Everyone in the household is at their wits’ end with them — until Mary Poppins arrives!
1935 – The Complete Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
Shabby and lumbering, with a face like a Norfolk dumpling, Father Brown makes for an improbable super-sleuth. But his innocence is the secret of his success: refusing the scientific method of detection, he adopts instead an approach of simple sympathy, interpreting each crime as a work of art, and each criminal as a man no worse than himself.
1936 – Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Civil War, Margaret Mitchell’s magnificent historical epic is an unforgettable tale of love and loss, of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed. Above all, it is the story of beautiful, ruthless Scarlett O’Hara and the dashing soldier of fortune, Rhett Butler.
1937 – Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The childlike Lennie is lost without his guardian, George, who feels his slow-witted friend has been delivered into his keeping. Bound by their fragile dream of owning land where they will ‘belong’, their paradisiac future is soon shattered.
1938 – Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
A story of gang war in the underworld of Brighton. Pinkie, only seventeen, has already brutally killed a man. Now believing he has escaped retribution, he is unprepared for Ida Arnold, who is determined to avenge the death.
1939 – Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot
The basis for the musical phenomenon ‘Cats’, this collection of 14 inviting rhymes – the mixture of the real and the impossible, the familiar and the fantastic – make for a set of poems that no child or adult can possibly resist.
1940s
1940 – For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal.
In his portrayal of Jordan’s love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo’s last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise.
1941 – Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier
Seeking peace of mind, Lady Donna de Colomb flees the stews of London and the Restoration court for remote Navaron. There she finds the boundless passion her spirit craves – daring to love the pirate hunted by all Cornwall.
1942 – The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
It’s seven in the morning. The Bantrys awake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl?
1943 – Five Go Adventuring Again by Enid Blyton
In their second adventure, the Famous Five find a thief at Kirrin Cottage. They think they know who it is, but need to prove it. Will the discovery of a very old map help uncover the true culprit?
1944 – Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
FICTIONS is perhaps the single most mysterious and extraordinary collection of short stories written this century. Influenced by writers as disparate as Lewis Carroll, Stevenson and Cervantes, Borges is nevertheless a complete original who can turn dry logical puzzles in to enchanting fables. The Pieces in this volume represent his most accomplished work.
1945 – Poldark by Graham Winston
Tired from a grim war in America, Ross Poldark returns to his land and his family. But the joyful homecoming he has looked forward to turns sour, for his father is dead, his estate is derelict, and the girl he loves is engaged to his cousin.
1946 – Titus Groan by Mervyn Peak
Welcome to the world of Gormenghast, the classic fantasy series from the imagination of Mervyn Peake
As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born: he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone.
1947 – The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Aged thirteen when Anne Frank went into the secret annexe, Anne kept a diary in which she confided her innermost thoughts and feelings, movingly revealing how the eight people living under these extraordinary conditions coped with the daily threat of discovery and death, petty misunderstandings and the unbearable strain of living like prisoners.
1948 – The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill was not only a statesman and leader of historic proportions, he also possessed substantial literary talents.
These two factors combine to make The Gathering Storm a unique work. The first volume of Churchill’s six-part memoir.
1949 – 1984 by George Orwell
In Winston Smith’s desperate struggle to free himself from an all-encompassing, malevolent state, Orwell zeroed in on tendencies apparent in every modern society, and made vivid the universal predicament of the individual.
1950s
1950 – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
Four adventurous siblings – Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie – step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.
1951 – Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
The Catcher in Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth and has influenced countless coming-of-age stories since.
Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the ‘phony’ aspects of society, and the ‘phonies’ themselves- the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.
1952 – The Borrowers by Mary Norton
The Borrowers have lived in the secret places of quiet old houses; behind the mantelpiece, inside the harpsichord, under the kitchen clock. They owned nothing, borrowed everything, and thought human beings were invented just for their use. Until one of the Borrowers made friends with a human.
1953 – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage.
Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.
1954 – The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first volume in J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings, voted Book of the Century in major polls.
In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Crack of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power – the only thing that prevents the Dark Lord’s evil dominion.
1955 – Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Poet and pervert, Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve year old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love. This seduction is one of the many dimensions in Nabokov’s dizzying masterpiece, which is suffused with rich, elaborate verbal textures.
1956 – My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Amidst the olive groves and mountains of Corfu, the Durrell family live in chaotic harmony, welcoming a constant stream of eccentric visitors to their villa. This island paradise is described by the keen young naturalist, Gerald.
1957 – Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, Doctor Zhivago is the epic story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to shelter in the Ural Mountains, Yuri Zhivago finds himself embroiled in a battle between the Whites and the Reds, and in love with the beautiful nurse Lara.
1958 – Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
‘Things Fall Apart’ tells the story of Okonkwo, an important man in the Igbo tribe in the days when white men were first on the scene. Okonkwo becomes exiled from his tribe, as a result of his pride and his fears, with tragic consequences.
1959 – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House. As they begin to cope with chilling, even horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead. For Hill House is gathering its powers – and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
1960s
1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Lawyer Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee’s classic novel – a black man charged with the rape of a white girl.
Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man’s struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much…
1961 – Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him. Joseph Heller’s bestselling novel is a hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man’s efforts to survive it.
1962 – A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
In this nightmare vision of youth in revolt, fifteen-year-old Alex and his friends set out on a diabolical orgy of robbery, rape, torture and murder. Alex is jailed for his teenage delinquency and the State tries to reform him – but at what cost?
1963 – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
‘The Bell Jar’ is Sylvia Plath’s account of a young woman’s breakdown. Renowned for its intensity and its vivid prose, the novel follows her attempted suicide, hospitilisation and recovery.
1964 – Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King Jr
In Why We Can’t Wait, King recounts the remarkable story of Birmingham in vivid detail. Tracing the history of the struggle for civil rights back to its beginnings in colonial-era slavery, King outlines the challenges of the present and the future, assessing the work to be done both in and beyond Birmingham to bring about full equality for African-Americans.
Above all, he offers an eloquent and penetrating analysis of the events and pressures that propelled the Civil Rights movement from lunch counter sit-ins and prayer marches to the forefront of American consciousness.
1965 – Dune by Frank Herbert
Melange, or ‘spice’, is the most valuable – and rarest – element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person’s life-span to making intersteller travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
1966 – Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. But soon after their marriage, rumors of madness in her family poison his mind against her. He forces Antoinette to conform to his rigid Victorian ideals.
1967 – One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family.
Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women — brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul — this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
1968 – 2001: a Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
On the Moon an enigma is uncovered. So great are the implications that, for the first time, men are sent out deep into the solar system. But before they can reach their destination, things begin to go horribly wrong.
1969 – The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
This is the story of a very hungry caterpillar growing into a beautiful butterfly.
1970s
1970 – Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Meet Margaret. She’s going through all the same things most teenage girls have to face; fitting in, friendship and first bras. Life isn’t easy for Margaret. She’s moved away from her childhood home, she’s starting a new school, finding new friends – and she’s convinced she’s not normal.
1971 – The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
An adventure thriller in which an anonymous Englishman who in the spring of 1963, was hired by Colonel Marc Rodin, Operations Chief of the OAS to assassinate General De Gaulle.
1972 – All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
Fresh out of Glasgow Veterinary College, to the young James Herriot 1930s Yorkshire seems to offer an idyllic pocket of rural life in a rapidly changing world.
But from his erratic new colleagues, brothers Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, to incomprehensible farmers, herds of semi-feral cattle, a pig called Nugent and an overweight Pekingese called Tricki Woo, James finds he is on a learning curve as steep as the hills around him.
1973 – The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Beautiful, flaxen-haired Buttercup has fallen for Westley, the farm boy, and when he departs to make his fortune, she vows never to love another. So, when she hears that his ship has been captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts (no survivors) her heart is broken.
1974 – If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
Tish is nineteen, and pregnant. Her lover Fonny, father of her child, is in jail accused of rape. The two families struggle win justice for Fonny.
1975 – The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula Le Guin
Wizardry, transforming its master into a cloud of fine mist…cloning, duplicating the ideal man ten times over…Utopia, in a city where almost everyone is perfectly happy…
Ursula Le Guin, author of The Earthsea Trilogy, has a special way of blending stirring adventure with fantasy that has made comparison with such masters as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien inevitable.
1976 – Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
This is the story of Louis, as told in his own words, of his journey through mortal and immortal life. Louis recounts how he became a vampire at the hands of the radiant and sinister Lestat and how he became indoctrinated, unwillingly, into the vampire way of life.
1977 – The Shining by Stephen King
Danny is only five years old, but in the words of old Mr Hallorann he is a ‘shiner’, aglow with psychic voltage. When his father becomes caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, Danny’s visions grow out of control. As winter closes in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seems to develop a life of its own.
1978 – Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
His weapon is the stiletto, his codename: The Needle. He is Hitler’s prize undercover agent – a cold and professional killer. It is 1944 and weeks before D-Day. The Allies are disguising their invasion plans with a phoney armada of ships and planes.
Their plan would be ruined if an enemy agent found out… And then The Needle does just that. Hunted by MI5, he leads a murderous trail across Britain to a waiting U-Boat. But he hasn’t planned for a storm-battered island, and the remarkable young woman who lives there…
1979 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The most useful advice ever given, Don’t Panic, can be found on the cover of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The day aliens demolish the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass is the day when Arthur Dent realises the futility of such advice. One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.
1980s
1980 – The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Name of the Rose is a thrilling story enriched with period detail and laced with tongue-in-cheek allusions to fictional characters, the most striking of which is the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, who displays many characteristics of Sherlock Holmes.
1981 – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Born at the stroke of midnight, at the precise moment of India’s independence, Saleem Sinai is destined from birth to be special. For he is one of 1,001 children born in the midnight hour, children who all have special gifts, children with whom Saleem is telepathically linked.
But there has been a terrible mix up at birth, and Saleem’s life takes some unexpected twists and turns. As he grows up amidst a whirlwind of triumphs and disasters, Saleem must learn the ominous consequences of his gift, for the course of his life is inseparably linked to that of his motherland, and his every act is mirrored and magnified in the events that shape the newborn nation of India.
It is a great gift, and a terrible burden.
1982 – The BFG by Roald Dahl
Giants are known for eating children. So when Sophie is snatched from her bed by the BFG, she fears for her life. But luckily he is far more jumbly than his disgusting neighbours. They become good friends and cook up a plan to rid the world of bad giants.
1983 – The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Somewhere between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a magical world not totally unlike our own. Except for the fact that it travels through space on the back of a giant turtle, of course.
The Discworld plays by different rules.
1984 – The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
THE HUNT IS ON…
Silently, beneath the chill Atlantic waters, Russia’s ultra-secret missile submarine, the Red October, is heading west.
The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. With all-out war only seconds away, the superpowers race across the ocean on the most desperate mission of a lifetime.
1985 – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford – her assigned name, Offred, means ‘of Fred’. She has only one function: to breed.
1986 – Maus I by Art Spiegelman
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.
1987 – Beloved by Toni Morrison
A novel set in the mid-19th century, when moves to abolish slavery are at their height and one man’s world of love turns to violence when his daughter, Beloved, dies at the hands of her mother
1988 – A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries?
These are just some of the questions considered in the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by the world renowned physicist – generally considered to have been one of the world’s greatest thinkers. It begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein, before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of space and time, from the Big Bang to black holes, via spiral galaxies and strong theory.
To this day A Brief History of Time remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and clear language continues to introduce millions to the universe and its wonders.
1989 – The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past.
1990s
1990 – Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be skeptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. But what if, for once, the predictions are right, and the apocalypse really is due to arrive next Saturday, just after tea?
1991 – American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?
Patrick Bateman has it all: good looks, youth, charm, a job on Wall Street, reservations at every new restaurant in town and a line of girls around the block. He is also a psychopath. A man addicted to his superficial, perfect life, he pulls us into a dark underworld where the American Dream becomes a nightmare . . .
1992 – The Pelican Brief by John Grisham
Darby Shaw, a promising law student, produces a speculative brief which penetrates to the highest levels of power in Washington and puts her life in danger. Originally published in 1992, this novel was adapted in a film starring Julia Roberts.
1993 – Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
This is the story of Stephen who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experience of the war itself.
1994 – Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
In ‘Long Walk To Freedom’, Nelson Mandela at last shares the story of his life. It is an epic saga of struggle, setback and ultimate triumph.
1995 – Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman
Lyra Belacqua and her animal daemon live half-wild and carefree among scholars of Jordan College, Oxford. The destiny that awaits her will take her to the frozen lands of the Arctic, where witch-clans reign and ice-bears fight. Her extraordinary journey will have immeasurable consequences far beyond her own world…
1996 – Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
This tale concerns the trials and tribulations of a single, girl-about-town on an optimistic but doomed quest for self- improvement. If she could just get down to 8st 7lb, stop smoking and develop inner poise, all would be resolved.
1997 – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive.
Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
1998 – The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is one woman, Precious Ramotswe, working out of a breezeblock office in Botswana. A cross between Kinsey Millhone and Miss Marple, Precious makes an unlikely heroine as she embarks on a very African mystery.
1999 – Naruto Vol.1 by Masashi Kishimoto
Naruto is a ninja-in-training with a need for attention, a knack for mischief, and sealed within him, a strange, formidable power. His antics amuse his instructor Kakashi and irritate his teammates, intense Sasuki and witty Sakura, but Naruto is serious about becoming the greatest ninja in the village.
2000s
2000 – White Teeth by Zadie Smith
White Teeth introduces three families – one white, one Indian, and one mixed living in North London and Oxford from World War II to the present day.
Over three generations, we meet the Joneses and the Iqbals who are brought together by friendship, their tangled histories and the suburb of London where they live.
Themes of friendship, love, war, and cultures intermingle in this delightful story, demonstrating that the past has a tricky habit of coming back and biting you on the ankle…
2001 – Life of Pi by Yann Martel
After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi – a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for a most extraordinary piece of literary fiction.
2002 – Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
At fifteen, Kafka Tamura runs away from home, either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister.
And the aging Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction, finds his highly simplified life suddenly upset. by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events.
Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle.
Yet this, like everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.
2003 – A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely in his own study at home, he can’t contain his curiosity about the world around him. This book is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization – how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us.
2004 – Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850, and a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilization – these and the other narrators of ‘Cloud Atlas’ hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.
2005 – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
40 years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan.
Convinced that she was murdered, her uncle hires Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet’s disappearance to a number of murders, dark family secrets are revealed.
2006 – The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
A story of innocence existing within the most terrible evil, this is the fictional tale of two young boys caught up in events beyond their control.
2007 – A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
This is the story of an unusual and lifelong friendship between two Afghan women, spanning from the idyllic mid 1950s to post-September 11 Kabul.
Bound by tragedy and fate, by political circumstance and custom, the two women live through the Soviet war, the harrowing days of the Afghan civil war and the rule of the Taliban. Yet even as their world unravels around them and innocence is shattered, they find that there, amidst the ruins, is the possibility for hope, meaning and unexpected grace.
2008 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. But Katniss has been close to death before-and survival, for her, is second nature.
Welcome to the deadliest reality TV show ever…
2009 – Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey’s clerk, and later his successor.
2010s
2010 – Room by Emma Donoghue
It’s Jack’s birthday, and he’s excited about turning five. Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real – only him, Ma and the things in Room.
2011 – The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.
Now Tony is retired. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.
2012 – I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
I am Malala’ tells the inspiring story of a schoolgirl who was determined not to be intimidated by extremists, and faced the Taliban with immense courage.
Malala speaks of her continuing campaign for every girl’s right to an education, shining a light into the lives of those children who cannot attend school.
2013 – Americanah by Ngozi Chimamanda
As teenagers, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love in a Nigeria under military dictatorship. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America, where Obinze hopes to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.
Fifteen years later, after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face?
2014 – All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a perfect miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorise it by touch and navigate her way home. But when the Nazis invade, they flee with a dangerous secret.
2015 – The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens.
She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ‘Jess and Jason’, she calls them. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.
And then she sees something shocking.
2016 – The Power by Naomi Alderman
All over the world women are discovering they have the power. With a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain – even death. Suddenly, every man on the planet finds they’ve lost control.
The Day of the Girls has arrived – but where will it end?
With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman’s shocking and visceral novel are utterly transformed, and we look at the world in an entirely new light. What if the power to hurt were in women’s hands?
2017 – The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs.
The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer.
Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed.
2018 – Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
For years, rumours of the ‘Marsh Girl’ have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast.
So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say.
Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved.
When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life – until the unthinkable happens.
2019 – Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
This is Britain as you’ve never read it.
This is Britain as it has never been told.
From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years.
They’re each looking for something – a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .
2020s
2020 – The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
2021 – Open Water by Caleb Ajumah Nelson
Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists – he a photographer, she a dancer – trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them.
2022 – Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing.
But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans, the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with – of all things – her mind. True chemistry results.
2023 – Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
THIS IS ONE HELL OF A STORY.
IT’S JUST NOT HERS TO TELL.
When failed writer June Hayward witnesses her rival Athena Liu die in a freak accident, she sees her opportunity… and takes it.
So what if it means stealing Athena’s final manuscript?
So what if it means ‘borrowing’ her identity?
And so what if the first lie is only the beginning…
Finally, June has the fame she always deserved. But someone is about to expose her…
What happens next is entirely everyone else’s fault.
2024 – ?
We’ll decide at the end of the year, but it’ll be a tough choice!