“The Rotter’s Club” follows three teenage schoolboys – Ben Trotter, Doug Anderson and Philip Chase – as they grow up in Birmingham during the 1970s. The novel explores their love lives, musical interests and the wider societal events that shaped Britain during the decade, including rock music, labour disputes, and IRA bombings.

In the summer of 1935, on the country estate of her family in Surrey, 13-year-old Briony Tallis mistakenly identifies Robbie Turner – a family friend and the lover of her elder sister, Cecilia – as the man who assaulted her cousin. Robbie is wrongly convicted and sent to prison. Years later, at the outbreak of the Second World War, Robbie is serving with the British Army in France, attempting to reach Dunkirk. Cecilia is working as a nurse in London, caring for wounded soldiers. Briony, now aged 18 and also training as a nurse, comes to understand the enormity of her mistake and struggles with how she might atone for the harm she has caused.

“White Teeth” centres on two friends and their families in north-west London from the 1970s to the 1990s: Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Samad struggles to reconcile his Muslim faith with life in England. As his sons grow up, they search for their own identities. The novel’s action ranges widely, touching on themes of religion, immigration, the legacy of the past, parenthood, eugenics, animal rights and the pressures of urban life.

“An Instance of the Fingerpost” is a historical novel set in seventeenth-century Oxford, centred on the poisoning of a theologian. A young servant, Sarah Blundy, is hanged for the crime, but the novel questions whether she was truly guilty. The events are recounted years later by four narrators whose accounts contradict one another.

“Ingenious Pain” is a historical novel set in 18th-century England and Russia. It follows the extraordinary life of James Dyer, an Englishman born without the ability to feel physical pain. After a difficult childhood, and a serious of adventures involving charlatans, scientists, and so-called “freaks”, he becomes a skilled – yet emotionally detached – surgeon in Bath, in the south of England. His story eventually leads him to the cold and wintry St Petersburg in Russia.

“Reading in the Dark” tells the story of a young boy growing up in a poor Catholic neighbourhood of Derry, Northern Ireland, during the 1950s. He becomes increasingly preoccupied with a long-buried family mystery: the disappearance of his uncle Eddie in the 1920s. Eddie is believed to have been a police informer, executed as a traitor by the IRA. This tragic event casts a long shadow over the family, bringing grief, shame, and a culture of silence. Determined to uncover the truth, the boy sets out to unravel the secrets his family would rather keep hidden.

When Rob Fleming’s girlfriend leaves him, his life becomes even messier than it already was. Rob is a 35-year-old man living in a one-bedroom flat in London, reluctant to commit, and prone to judging people by their taste in music. He spends much of his time with his colleagues Dick and Barry in the second-hand record shop he owns. When compiling endless “top five” lists of music and films no longer fills the void, he decides to track down his ex-girlfriends and ask them why his relationships keep falling apart.

“Behind the Scenes at the Museum” tells the life story of Ruby Lennox, a woman from York, and of four generations of women in her family. Together, these narratives form a compelling portrait of an English family throughout the twentieth century, particularly during the two World Wars.

In her non-fiction book “Longitude”, Dava Sobel recounts how the 18th-century, self-taught clockmaker John Harrison solved the problem of determining longitude (the east–west position) at sea by inventing the first successful marine chronometers. His achievement cracked a navigational problem that had defeated scientists for centuries and dramatically improved the safety of sea travel.

“How Late it Was, How Late” tells the tragic story of Sammy, an ex-convict from Glasgow who, following a drinking binge and a fight with the police, is left blind. The novel follows his struggle to come to terms with his sudden disability and the many challenges it brings.