Books have not always been in the news for the right reasons in 2024. Controversy raged in the US as hundreds of titles were banned from school libraries - among them such classics as Margaret AtwoodCanadian novelist whose best-known book is The Handmaid's Tale.'s The Handmaid's Tale and Kurt VonnegutAn American author (1922 - 2007) known for his satire and dark humour. 's Slaughterhouse 5. But no politician can curb the amazing fertility of the human imagination.  

New novels this year have ranged across time and space. They vary from Eve McDowell's The Last Boy, which pictures the life of a child chimneysweep in Victorian times, to Olivia Levez's Silver, which describes an alien girl's initially horrified and then delighted experience of Earth: "Each dwelling is crammed with huddled humans. I imagine the reek of them, their pushing jostle, and shudder."

Here are five that could change the way you see the world:

1. Interstellar amazement. Samantha Harvey's Orbital follows life on an ageing space station as it spins around the Earth over 24 hours. The astronauts from different countries work harmoniously together, but watch with alarm as a supertyphoonWhen a typhoon (which is the same as a hurricane) has a sustained surface-wind strength of 240km or 150mph. gathers strength below them. With extraordinary descriptions of the cosmosThe universe, especially when it is understood as an ordered system., it is a deeply poetic book with a strong environmental message.

2. Dystopian adventure. Ali Smith's exciting and disturbing Gliff imagines a futuristic Britain where the government watches everyone and undesirables are kidnapped for re-education. Separated from their parents, 13-year-old Bri and his younger sister try to escape the system with the aid of an old horse and a communeA group of people who live together and share possessions, income and responsibilities. They often live in an unconventional way. in an abandoned school.

3. Classic revisited. In Mark TwainThe pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a 19th Century writer known as "the father of American literature". 's great 19th Century novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, set in the American South, the young hero and his slave friend Jim run away in search of freedom. Percival Everett's James tells the story from Jim's point of view, further revealing the brutality of slavery while still managing to find humour in the pair's exploits.   

4. Forging friendship. Hisham Matar's My Friends focuses on two Libyan teenagers studying in Britain in the 1980s. When a demonstration outside the Libyan embassy turns violent, both their lives are changed for ever. The book brilliantly explores the importance of friendship and the effects of exileForced out of one's country, often as a form of punishment. .   

5. Ancient drama. Sicily during the Peloponnesian WarA 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. is the setting for Ferdia Lennon's hilarious and moving Glorious Exploits. Two unemployed potters bond with Athenian prisoners over a love of EuripidesAn ancient Greek playwright, known for his tragedies.' plays and set about staging one of them - but there are many obstacles to overcome. Lennon ingeniously uses a modern Irish working-class voice to illuminate the past.

Can fiction change your life?

Yes: It allows us to stand in other people's shoes and see the world from their point of view, takes us to places we have never been and invites us to consider the greatest questions of human existence.

No: It is just a form of escapism. It can be very entertaining, but is no help in dealing with the problems we meet in the real world - that can only be done by facing them in a matter-of-fact way.

Or... It has already changed millions of lives. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, for example, played a leading role in mobilising opposition to slavery in 19th Century America.