12 of the best thought-provoking books

Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings is a masterfully observed portrait of modern England, tracing the entwined fates of two men over decades. Dave Win, a gifted actor, struggles with class, race, and sexuality. Meanwhile, his privileged contemporary, Giles, rises to political power, embodying the forces that constrain Dave’s freedom. Luminous and wickedly funny, the novel explores love, ambition, privilege and the cost of living authentically in a world resistant to change, making this an elegant yet thought-provoking read.

A haunting exploration of identity, migration, and the lives we might have lived, Salutation Road follows Sirad, a young Londoner thrust into an alternate present-day Mogadishu. There, she encounters the family and self she could have known had history unfolded differently. As past and present blur, her return home brings more questions than answers, especially when her double, Ubah, mysteriously follows. Ibrahim’s novel is both a moving family drama and a sharp interrogation of fate, belonging, and the lingering weight of exile. This profound meditation on the choices that shape us and the histories we inherit will linger on your mind.

With biting satire and refreshing irreverence, How I Won a Nobel Prize explores the difficult trade-offs between ambition, loyalty, and ethics. When Helen, a brilliant young physicist, follows her disgraced mentor to an island refuge for the ‘cancelled,’ she must navigate a world where genius and wrongdoing uneasily coexist. As personal and political tensions mount, she and her partner face major – and potentially world-altering – choices. Both darkly comic and unsettlingly timely, Julius Taranto’s debut challenges our understanding of virtue and the cost of intellectual freedom, while deliberately resisting a clear stance on the cancel-culture versus anti-woke debate. The interpretation is left to you.

From Booker Prize-shortlisted author Percival Everett, I Am Not Sidney Poitier is a brilliantly absurd and razor-sharp satire of race, wealth, and identity in America. Orphaned at eleven, Not Sidney Poitier – who bears an uncanny resemblance to the legendary actor – inherits immense wealth but finds himself constantly misread by a society obsessed with labels. Raised by a rich foster father, Ted Turner, and thrust into a world that can’t quite place him,  the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin colour with his fabulous wealth. Both hilarious and heart-breaking, Everett’s novel invites you to reflect on perception, privilege, and belonging.

Anisa Ellahi, an aspiring literary translator, stumbles upon an elite program that promises fluency in any language within ten days. But as she immerses herself in its mysterious methods, she begins to uncover a disturbing secret at its core. Darkly comic and surreal, Siddiqi’s novel interrogates the politics of language, translation, and cultural appropriation, forcing you to question how far you would go for perfection – and what it truly means to claim a voice of one’s own.

A one-of-a-kind novel about memory, politics, and about the lies we tell ourselves and each other. It’s feverishly close to home; featuring a highly polarizing US President, a global pandemic and the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Prepare to be politically provoked by this highly observant novel that explores a world where misinformation is mistaken as fact in the midst of a post-truth era.  A Time Outside This Time captures the uncanny sentiment in all our minds, of how impossible it can feel to remember a time outside of this one.

Nineteen Eighty-Four remains George Orwell’s most acutely relevant and influential novel to this day. It’s almost impossible to talk about propaganda, surveillance, authoritarian politics and perversions of truth without referencing this book. In this terrifying dystopia, people are watched day and night by Big Brother and controlled by the Thought Police. These fictional regimes still feel unsettlingly familiar, lingering in our cultural memory and echoing real-world events. This is the ultimate thought-provoking read that will have you captured by its unnerving familiarity.

From one of America’s greatest writers, The Silence is a timely and compelling novel about what happens when an unpredictable crisis strikes. It’s Superbowl Sunday in 2022, suddenly there is a power blackout, and millions of people are left staring into a black void. As we follow various character’s inability to connect to each other, it becomes a gripping conversation about how much we rely on technology and how vulnerable we become when we are stripped of our digital devices. Don DeLillo definitely gives us something to think about, perfectly capturing our existential anxieties on the page.

Sociopath: A Memoir is a gripping, unflinching account of a life lived on the edge – of the law, of relationships, and of self-control. From childhood acts of violence to reckless college escapades, Gagne candidly unpacks the behaviors that led to her diagnosis. But her journey challenges conventional ideas of sociopathy: Can someone with a condition defined by a lack of empathy build a meaningful life? Both disconcerting and deeply illuminating, this memoir compels you to reconsider what it means to be a ‘good’ person  – and whether sociopathy is as black and white as we’ve been led to believe.

In a world made for White people, The Science of Racism uses clear scientific research to expose what we know about racism, exactly how we know it, and what we can do about it. Professor Keon West presents decades of rigorous research, exposing the structural biases shaping our world. Cutting through rhetoric and anecdotes, he lays out the hard facts to challenge assumptions, offering a compelling case for why understanding the science of racism is the first step towards meaningful change. Whatever you’ve read before, this book will ensure that you never see racism in the same way again.

Loneliness is a quiet but profound force, shaping lives in ways we rarely acknowledge. In All the Lonely People, psychologist Dr Sam Carr gathers intimate stories from teenagers, carers, single parents, and the bereaved, revealing a deep longing for connection that transcends age and circumstance. Poignant and thought-provoking, this book challenges us to rethink how we nurture relationships and build stronger communities – reminding us that, in understanding loneliness, we may find the key to true belonging.

Henry Gee explores the factors – falling birth rates, economic stagnation, and climate change – that suggest our species may be approaching its end in The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire. From our prehistoric origins to our current dominance, he examines how we rose to power and why that very success could lead to our downfall. Blending sharp scientific insight with wit and warmth, this fascinating book will challenge you to rethink the fate of civilization – and whether we can change course before it’s too late.