10 contemporary British novels every Nigerian would fall in love with

We all grew up reading Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare for WAEC exams that made it compulsory to at least read one classic, neglecting a relatively small amount of other brilliant contemporary British authors.

Far from doting upon the same social issues, these novels often express the difficulties of adjusting to modernity after colonial rule, to adapting to suburban life, to rejecting and accepting new subversive movements.

And yes it would give you an insight into how to nail the almighty British accent.

1. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

This is one of the most charming and heartbreaking love stories you will ever read. You’ll laugh, you’ll weep, and when you turn the last page, you’ll want to start all over again.

The movie trailer of the book is out and it would blow your mind.

2. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Set in modern London, Zadie Smith’s debut novel chronicles Bangladeshi and Jamaican families as they struggle to express their identity in an increasingly saturated society. While it takes on faith, race, gender, history, and culture. Zadie Smith's dazzling first novel is not to be missed.

3. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro is the king of the unreliable narrator, and in The Unconsoled, a pianist begins to lose his memory and sense of place in the world.

4. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters earned a reputation as one of Britain’s great writers of historical fiction, and here she delivers again. A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of 1920s London.

5. How to Be Both by Ali Smith

How to be both is a novel all about art’s versatility. It’s a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real—and all life’s givens get given a second chance.

6. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

If there were an infinite number of chances to live your life, would you be able to save the world from its own destiny? Wildly inventive, darkly comic, and startlingly poignant, this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.

7. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single sitting, this Man Booker Prize–winning novel of stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication is a brilliant new chapter in Julian Barnes’s oeuvre.

8. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

One of Britain’s most accomplished, acclaimed, and garlanded writers, Hilary Mantel brutally and acutely recreates Tudor England in this Man Booker Prize–winning novel. She deploys her gifts for penetrating, unsparing characterization to breathe thrilling new life into the well-trodden territory of Henry VIII and his court.

9. The Child in Time by Ian MacEwan

Once a child goes missing, she becomes frozen in her parents’ mind at the age of her disappearance.

10. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Meet Bridget Jones—a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could:

a. lose 7 pounds

b. stop smoking

c. develop Inner Poise

Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and like millions of readers the world around the world — you'll find yourself shouting, "Bridget Jones is me!"

READ: 10 outstanding books by African authors you should read in May

READ ALSO: 'Me Before You' trailer is out and it would make you cry too much