With so many novels and works of fiction to choose from these days, where do you start? Here, we've put together reading lists compiled by some of the most eminent authors, poets, critics and academics writing today to help you find the best novels and works of fiction. Whether you're looking for some light holiday reading or writing an essay about Charles Dickens books, you should be able to find what you're looking for.

Our fiction section is broadly organized as follows. First, we have interviews with leading academics on some of the great authors of the past (e.g Jane Austen, George Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov). Generally the recommendations will be a combination of the most important works by those authors, as well as one or two books of literary criticism.

For prominent authors still alive and writing today, our interviews tend to focus on the books that inspired them. Our collection of interviews and book recommendations entitled 'Novelists' Inspiration' can be found here.

We also have a lot of novels and fiction broken down geographically, so our site is a good place to find (say) the best Egyptian or South African novels or the best of Israeli fiction. The best Italian novels are a perennial favourite.

Finally, we have a lot of genre fiction – from thrillers and horror to historical fiction and romance.

The most recommended books in our interviews include Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Our book recommendations are all made by experts, who explain their choices in an interview. You can browse our database either by book or by interview: