Flesh
On 2 lists: Booker Prize, NPR Books We Love
Curated category · 2006—2025
Best literary fiction
Award-winning and editorially recommended literary fiction across twenty years, organized for discovery rather than sales ranking.
- Selections
- 80
- Authors
- 71
- Lists & prizes
- 6
Showing 1–48 of 80
James
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Safekeep
Women’s Prize for Fiction
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
On 2 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, NPR Books We Love
Brotherless Night
Women’s Prize for Fiction
James
On 3 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, NPR Books We Love, The New York Times — 10 Best Books
Night Watch
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Orbital
Booker Prize
Blackouts
On 2 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, NPR Books We Love
Demon Copperhead
On 2 lists: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Women’s Prize for Fiction
Prophet Song
On 2 lists: Booker Prize, NPR Books We Love
Trust
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Book of Form and Emptiness
Women’s Prize for Fiction
The Netanyahus
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Rabbit Hutch
On 2 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, NPR Books We Love
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
On 2 lists: Booker Prize, NPR Books We Love
Hell of a Book
On 2 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, NPR Books We Love
Piranesi
Women’s Prize for Fiction
The Night Watchman
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Promise
Booker Prize
Hamnet
On 3 lists: Women’s Prize for Fiction, NPR Books We Love, The New York Times — 10 Best Books
Interior Chinatown
National Book Award for Fiction
Shuggie Bain
Booker Prize
The Nickel Boys
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
An American Marriage
Women’s Prize for Fiction
Girl, Woman, Other
On 2 lists: Booker Prize, NPR Books We Love
The Overstory
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Testaments
Booker Prize
Trust Exercise
National Book Award for Fiction
Home Fire
Women’s Prize for Fiction
Less
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Milkman
Booker Prize
The Friend
National Book Award for Fiction
Lincoln in the Bardo
On 2 lists: Booker Prize, NPR Books We Love
Sing, Unburied, Sing
On 3 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, The New York Times — 10 Best Books, NPR Books We Love
The Power
On 3 lists: Women’s Prize for Fiction, NPR Books We Love, The New York Times — 10 Best Books
The Underground Railroad
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Glorious Heresies
Women’s Prize for Fiction
The Sellout
Booker Prize
The Sympathizer
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Underground Railroad
On 3 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, The New York Times — 10 Best Books, NPR Books We Love
A Brief History of Seven Killings
Booker Prize
All the Light We Cannot See
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Fortune Smiles: Stories
On 2 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, NPR Books We Love
How to Be Both
Women’s Prize for Fiction
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
On 2 lists: Women’s Prize for Fiction, NPR Books We Love
Redeployment
On 3 lists: National Book Award for Fiction, NPR Books We Love, The New York Times — 10 Best Books
The Goldfinch
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction