The five best novels of the 21st century - all have been turned into films or TV shows

Often, when debating what your next read will be, it can be a toss-up between reading the book of the moment that everyone is talking about, or choosing one of the classics that you know you should read, but may not get around to. If you tend to opt for the former, then this list could be for you. Recently, the Times released its top 25 books of the 21st century, and we have compiled a list of its top five. From period dramas to boarding schools, here are the top five reads of the century so far.

5. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)

Kazuo Ishiguro's novel was adapted for film in 2010, with Keira Knightley in the lead role. The book's synopsis reads: "Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it's only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

"Never Let Me Go breaks through the boundaries of the literary novel. It is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date."

4. Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)

Keira Knightley also starred in the adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement, alongside James McAvoy in 2007.

The blurb states: "Ian McEwan's symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose.

"On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives-together with her precocious literary gifts-brings about a crime that will change all their lives.

"As it follows that crime's repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece."

3. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (2021)

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan was most recently adapted for film, with Cillian Murphy in the lead role, last year. The synopsis reads: "It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

"Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers."

2. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (2004)

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst was adapted for BBC in 2006 and starred Oliver Coleman, Dan Stevens and Alex Wyndham. The books plot reads: "In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby-whom Nick had idolized at Oxford-and Catherine, highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions. As the boom years of the eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in the world of politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of this glamorous family. His two vividly contrasting love affairs, one with a young black clerk and one with a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the dangers and rewards of his own private pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling to Nick as the desire for power and riches among his friends. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly comic, this U.K. bestseller is a major work by one of our finest writers."

1. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (2012)

Mark Rylance and Claire Foy in the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. The synopsis reads: "Bring Up the Bodies is the second novel in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall Trilogy, focusing on Thomas Cromwell's efforts to secure his position and the stability of England by engineering the downfall and execution of Anne Boleyn in 1536. As Henry VIII's power grows and his desire for a male heir intensifies, Cromwell must navigate the treacherous court, manipulate accusations of treason, and orchestrate Anne's demise, all while facing political machinations, personal grief, and the ever-present threat of the king's wrath. The book portrays a vividly realized Tudor world through Cromwell's cynical but brilliant perspective, leading to Anne's arrest, trial, and execution for treason."