Books can have a life-altering effect, with a simple idea able to provide the catalyst for change. They allow us to see through the eyes of others and experience ways of living that can transform our original view of the world. From reflecting on our individual actions to understanding the complexities of life and how our past can influence the future, books can inherently change us.

In a speech broadcast at the Booker Prize ceremony in 2020, former US President Barack Obama said, ‘At their best, Booker Prize listed books remind me of fiction’s power to help us put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, understand their struggles and imagine new ways to tackle complex problems – and effect change.’

With those words in mind, and with the start of a new year providing the chance for us all to make a fresh start, we asked our readers to tell us about the Booker-nominated books that have changed their worldview, sparking new ideas and shifting opinions. Whether prompting career changes or helping individuals to process grief, these books provide strength to help overcome a variety of challenges, and offer lessons and insights that our readers have taken to heart. Prepare for your life to be altered by this list.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan’s tender tale of hope and quiet heroism is both a celebration of compassion and a stern rebuke of the sins committed in the name of religion. 

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him – and encounters the complicit silences of a small community controlled by the Church. Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022.

What our readers said: ‘Keegan manages to capture both the goodness and evil in us and hold a mirror up to the way we view the world we live in. On top of that, she writes beautiful and lyrical prose and captures the story in a short, sharp novella that will leave you wanting more.’

Reimaginelit, Instagram

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

In Margaret Atwood’s feminist dystopian classic, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1986, nothing happens ‘that hasn’t already happened at some time or another’. 

Offred is a national resource. In the Republic of Gilead her viable ovaries make her a precious commodity, and the state allows her only one function: to breed. As a Handmaid she carries no name except her Master’s, for whose barren wife she must act as a surrogate. Dissenters are supposed to end up either at the Wall, where they are hanged, or in the Colonies, to die a lingering death from radiation sickness. But the irrepressible Moira shows Offred that it is possible to cheat the system.

What our readers said: ‘Few books in my adult life have affected me as powerfully as The Handmaid’s Tale. By the time it came out in 1985-1986, the advances of the 1970s were in the rear-view mirror, I was working in a male-dominated field, Ronald Reagan was president, the AIDS epidemic was in full swing, the religious right was gearing up to challenge abortion rights, and the women’s movement had stalled. The Handmaid’s Tale did not feel like science fiction but seemed more like a vision of the future. I realised when I read the book that rights could be taken away as easily as they could be granted. I haven’t slept easily since.’

Melinda Meador, Facebook

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Narrated by a chorus of voices, George Saunders’ startlingly original novel – winner of the Booker Prize in 2017 – is a thrilling exploration of death, grief and the possibilities of life. 

February, 1862. Two days after his death, 11-year-old Willie Lincoln is laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. All that night, his father Abraham paces the darkness of the graveyard, shattered with grief. Meanwhile, Willie is trapped in a state of limbo between the dead and the living – drawn to his father with whom he can no longer communicate, existing in a ghostly world populated by the recently passed and the long dead.

What our readers said: ‘I have never read anything like it and it challenged my view of what is possible. But mainly it helped me understand grief in a way I had not before. It was life-changing and I still think about it years later.’

Noz Rosset, Facebook

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

At a time of political turmoil, the lives of four strangers collide. Rohinton Mistry’s masterpiece, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1986, is set in an unnamed Indian in the mid 1970s, where a state of emergency has been declared. 

In the tiny flat of the widowed Dina Dalal, Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, tailors who have been forced from their village into the city, and Maneck Kohlah, a young student from a hill-station near the Himalayas, are painfully constructing new lives, which become entwined in circumstances no one could have foreseen.

What our readers said: ‘A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry definitely changed my perspective on my life and how fortunate I am to have a home in Canada. I still think about this novel many years later, especially when I hear people complaining how terrible things are here.’

Mary Rutter, Facebook

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann

Winner of the International Booker Prize 2024, Jenny Erpenbeck’s intimate and devastating story follows two lovers through the ruins of an age-gap relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history. 

Berlin. 11 July, 1986. They meet by chance on a bus. She is a young student, he is older and married. Theirs is an intense and sudden attraction, fuelled by a shared passion for music and art, and heightened by the secrecy they must maintain. But when she strays for a single night, he cannot forgive her and a dangerous crack forms between them, opening up a space for cruelty, punishment and the exertion of power. The world around them is changing too: as the GDR begins to crumble, so too do all the old certainties and the old loyalties, ushering in a new era whose great gains also involve profound loss. 

What our readers said: ‘This book affected me on two levels. One, before reading I did not have a real view of life in East Germany. And two, more importantly, how my own view colours my experience of good and bad, that things are so much more complex.’

Vicki Gay, Facebook

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Douglas Stuart’s blistering and heartbreaking debut, which won the Booker Prize in 2020, is an exploration of the unsinkable love that only children can have for their damaged parents. 

1981, Glasgow. The city is dying. Poverty is on the rise. When her philandering husband walks out, leaving her with three children, Agnes turns to alcohol for comfort. The children try their best to save her, yet one by one they have to abandon her in order to save themselves. Shuggie still holds out hope, but he has problems of his own – despite his efforts to pass as ‘normal’. Agnes wants to protect her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everything and everyone.

What our readers said: ‘Shuggie Bain changed me. It startled me out of a slow and sad life, reminding me of its brutality, its relentlessness, and how we cannot lose sight of our vulnerabilities within it. We must live every moment. And we cannot lose sight of our essential humanity, which unites us. A truth served dazzlingly, blindingly cold in this novel.’

Seanin Friel, Facebook

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro’s third novel, which won the Booker in 1989, is a moving portrait of the perfect English butler, his loyalty and his fading, insular world in post-war England. At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving ‘a great gentleman.’ But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington’s ‘greatness’ – and about his unresolved feelings for Darlington Hall’s housekeeper, Miss Kenton.

What our readers said: ‘It made me think about all the things in life – in books, art, music, conversation, relationships that are left unsaid/unspoken/undone. This, of course, is a theme of the book and a feature of Ishiguro’s writing in general – the hidden text behind the words on the page. I was changed when I read it and I remain changed even now, over 30 years later.’

Johann Selvarajah, Facebook

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

In Julian Barnes’ compelling novella, which won the Booker in 2011, a middle-aged man is forced to reconsider his life when he is confronted with his imperfectly remembered past. 

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they navigated the sixth form together, trading in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends. Now Tony is retired. He’s had a career, a marriage, and a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.

What our readers said: ‘I would like to think that I am a thoroughly nice bloke. However, upon finishing the book I did wonder if my recollections of the breakdown of a relationship would tally with the other person’s. It was sobering to think back and say: did I do the decent and right things?’

Simon Sunderland, Substack

The Overstory by Richard Powers

In Richard Powers’ radical and remarkable novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2018, nine strangers are each summoned in different ways by the natural world to save it from catastrophe. The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable, ranging from antebellum New York to the late-20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, revealing a world alongside our own: vast, slow, resourceful, magnificently inventive and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world, and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

What our readers said: ‘A novel with trees as the principal characters! What a wonderful way to present a message about the breadth of sentience in the natural world. Powers describes forests as communities in which residents communicate with, protect, and nurture each other. This book has led me to expand my views about living things with which we share our planet.’

Philip Seib, Substack

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

A mother faces a terrible choice, in Paul Lynch’s exhilarating, propulsive and confrontational portrait of a society on the brink – which won the Booker Prize in 2023. 

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her doorstep. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police want to speak with her husband. Things are falling apart. Ireland is in the grip of a government that is taking a turn towards tyranny. And as the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society – assailed by unpredictable forces beyond her control and forced to do whatever it takes to keep her family together.  

What our readers said: ‘Prophet Song by Paul Lynch is a book that will always remain in my thoughts. It is so beautifully written and tells a story that belongs to us all. The tale of Eilish Stack and her family reminds us that the world we know can come undone in a blink of time. Sometimes there are signs to watch for, but the urge to live in the moment can lead any one of us into inertia or passivity. I hope to pull this book off my shelf often, to revisit these ideas.’

Barbara Ehrlich, Substack

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy’s poetic debut novel – which won the Booker in 1997 – tells the story of twins Estha and Rahel, and the shocking consequences of a pivotal event in their young lives. 

Set in Kerala in the 1960s, the novel paints a vivid picture of life in a rural Indian town, the thoughts and feelings of the two small children, and the complexity and hypocrisy of the adults in their world. It is also a poignant lesson in the destructive power of the caste system and moral and political bigotry in general.

What our readers said: ‘It has to be The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I grew up in Kerala and also have a twin of the opposite sex. The book was reassuring about how the melancholia of life bonds us and drifts us apart as we age. While there are many great quotes in the book, the one that has stuck with me is: “Only small things are ever said, the big things lurk unsaid, inside.”’

Dhaval Bhate, Substack

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

In 1999, J.M. Coetzee became the first author to win the Booker a second time with this tale set in post-apartheid South Africa, where a professor’s complacency contributes to his utter downfall. 

Refusing to apologise after an impulsive affair with a student, David Lurie, a 52-year-old professor in Cape Town, seeks refuge on his daughter’s farm. Here, a savage and disturbing attack brings into relief the faults in their relationship. Pitching the moral code of political correctness against the values of Romantic poetry, Disgrace examines dichotomies both in personal relationships and in the unaccountability of one culture towards another.

What our readers said: ‘It is a difficult book, but a necessary one. Many complained that the writer does not take a definite position, but it seems to me that he is forcing us to ask difficult questions about the relations between men and women, Black and white, rich and poor, the new versus the old. Still one of the best novels by Coetzee, and one of my all-time favourites.’

Mr K D, Substack

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

A love story unfolds over half a century, as Richard Flanagan’s epic novel – winner of the Booker Prize in 2014 – tells the unforgettable story of one man’s reckoning with the truth. 

In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the infamous Thailand-Burma Death Railway during the Second World War, surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, cholera and beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever.

What our readers said: ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan helped me understand how my great love died and allowed me to gradually change my life to accommodate that death.’

Randa Reiff Shea, Substack

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

The third volume of Pat Barker’s trilogy, which won the Booker Prize in 1995 – follows the fortunes of shell-shocked British army officers towards the end of the First World War. 

In 1918, Billy Prior experiences a late-summer idyll, some days of perfect beauty, before the final battles in a war that has destroyed most of his generation. In London, Prior’s psychologist, William Rivers, tends to his new patients, more young men whose lives and minds have been shattered. At the same time, he recalls the primitive society on Eddystone Island where he studied as an anthropologist before the war.

What our readers said: ‘Barker weaves together fact and fiction in her exploration of the impact of shell shock on British officers towards the end of the war, and their new treatment by visionary psychologist William Rivers. The final book in her trilogy, it reveals the trauma of war and its shattering effect on lives and minds in a new way.’

Peter Belchamber, Substack

All answers have been edited for clarity.