Best Contemporary Fiction Books

Pip Tyler — twenty-three, broke, searching for her mysterious father — is recruited into a WikiLeaks-style organization run by an enigmatic German idealist. Franzen's fourth novel is his most ambitious in scale and his most contentious, weaving American internet culture with Cold War German history.

Two mixed-race girls grow up together in north London, bonded by a love of dance. One becomes a global pop star's assistant; the other, a dancer who never quite makes it. Smith's fifth novel weaves together questions of race, ambition, fame, and what it means to be the supporting character in someone else's story.

Four north Londoners — each shaped by the same council estate — navigate adulthood differently. Smith's most formally adventurous novel abandons the warm sociability of White Teeth for fragmented, pressured prose that tries to catch consciousness in the act.