Best fiction books of 2024: from Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo to Percival Everett’s James

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. James by Percival Everett open image in gallery Future classic: Percival Everett brings new life to ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ Done well, a literary retelling can shine fresh light on a story we think we know inside out: just look at Jean Rhys’s Jane Eyre prequel Wide Sargasso Sea, or, more recently, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, which moves Dickens’ David Copperfield to contemporary opiod crisis America. Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan open image in gallery Sweeping: there’s a Dickensian quality to Andrew O’Hagan’s latest novel A celebrity art historian courting controversy. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley open image in gallery Time-travelling: Kaliane Bradley’s debut will make your head spin Part science fiction, part thriller, part historical novel, part romantic comedy, The Ministry of Time is impossible to categorise. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney open image in gallery Empathetic: ‘Intermezzo’ deals with sibling rivalry and grief Sally Rooney’s fourth novel is her most meditative, empathetic work to date, proving in no uncertain terms that she is far more than a chronicler of millennial ennui with an aversion to speech marks, as the naysayers would have us believe.