Can fiction change your life? From Sicily in the 5th Century BC to a present-day space station, 2024’s novelists have taken readers on some extraordinary journeys.
Review of the year: greatest novels
Books of 2024: Samantha Harvey's Orbital, a drama about six astronauts on an orbiting space station, won the Booker Prize this year. Glossary
Supertyphoon - When a typhoon (which is the same as a hurricane) has a sustained surface-wind strength of 240km or 150mph.
Ecological - Relating to the environment.
Government - The group of people who govern - or lead - the country.
Commune - A group of people who live together and share possessions, income and responsibilities. They often live in an unconventional way.
Mark Twain - The pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a 19th Century writer known as "the father of American literature".
Slave - Somebody who is forced to work without pay and cannot leave.
Libyan - From Libya, a country in North Africa.
Embassy - The workplace of a group of government officials who represent their country in another country.
Exile - Forced out of one's country, often as a form of punishment.
Peloponnesian War - A long and bloody war fought between Sparta, Athens and the allies of each side. Sparta ultimately triumphed, but the war tipped the whole Greek world into decline, and both powers would soon succumb to Macedonia and then Rome.
Athenian - From either modern or ancient Athens in Greece.
Euripides - An ancient Greek playwright, known for his tragedies.