Thank you for your help in compiling this information. The list was determined 25 May 2011.

Note this category is written recently looking back into history, rather than titles which were written over a century ago

What other authors and titles would you suggest for this category - please add your ideas in blue.

For the first phase of this project we need to identify 500 adult fiction titles which together are indicative of a healthy adult fiction collection. This is not a shopping list of titles, but an indicative list. There will be a very broad range of titles in this list from the very popular to the very literacy. Find out more about the project here.

Please add your suggested authors and titles to the wiki in dark blue. Do not delete or edit (unless to correct spelling) the work of others as we need as many suggestions as possible so that the final list is indicative and robust.

• Philippa Gregory The other Boleyn girl
• Ken Follett Pillars of the earth, Fall of giants
• Dorothy Dunnett The queen’s pawn, House of niccollo series, Lymond series
• Jean Plaidy (title suggestions needed)
• Cynthia Harrod Eagles (title suggestions needed) Moreland series
• Con Iggulden (title suggestions needed) Wolf of the plains
• Mary Stewart (title suggestions needed) The crystal cave
• Mary Reynault (title suggestions needed)
• Wilber Smith The river god
• Robert Graves I Claudius
• Edward Rutherford London
• Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall
• Jean Auel The painted caves, Earth's Children series
• Christian Jacq Ramses series, Mozart Series
• Valerio Massimo Manfredi - Alexander series
• (author and title suggestions needed)
• Please put your ideas and suggestions here
• Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha
• C S Forester - Hornblower series
• Anne Enright - The Gathering
• Ellis Peters - Cadfael series
• Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities
• Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient
• Marcus Zusak - The Book Thief
• Ken Follett - World without End
• Patrick O'Brian - Master and commander (series)
• Tracey Chevalier - The girl with a pearl earring
• C J Sansom - Dissolution
• George MacDonald Fraser - The Flashman Papers (series)
• Bernard Cornwell - Richard Sharpe series
• Mary Ann Schaffer - Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society (several possible lists for this one)
• Jacqueline Winspear - Maisie Dobbs
• E.V Thompson - Tomorrow is Forever
• Geradine Brooks - March
• Geraldine Brooks - Year of wonders
• Marele Day - Mrs Cook
• Kate Grenville - The secret river
• Kate Grenville - The Lieutenant
• Breena Clarke - River, cross my heart
• Donna Tartt - The little friend
• Patrick McCabe - Butcher boy
• Bernard Cornwell - Azincourt (also published as Agincourt)
• Caleb Carr - The Alienist
• Martin Davies - The conjurer's bird
• David Hewson - The garden of evil/ The sacred cut/ A season for the dead
• Louise Penny - Bury your dead
• Sarah Waters - Tipping the Velvet
• Katherine Howe - the lost book of Salem (us title Physic book of Deliverance Dane)
• Andrea Levy - The long song : a novel
• Jean Auel -Clan of cave bears
• Geraldine Brooks - Year of wonders
• Edward Rutherford - Dublin
• Ion Idriess - The red chief
• Ruth Park - Poor man's orange
• Robert Harris - Pompeii
•