Where to start with Andrew Miller

British novelist, born 1960. Won the Costa Novel Award in 2011 and the Walter Scott Prize in 2025.

Best Andrew Miller book to start with: The Land in Winter (2024), on 2 of the 10 lists it could have made.

Begin with his most recent book, The Land in Winter. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2025 and won the Walter Scott Prize that year. It follows two couples through a bitter English winter in the early 1960s, and it is a closely observed book that reads quickly.

Pure won the Costa Novel Award in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize in 2012. It is set in Paris in the 1780s, where a young engineer is sent to clear an overcrowded cemetery, and it is the one to choose if you like your history strange and physical.

Oxygen, shortlisted for both the Booker and the Costa in 2001, is the earliest of the three and a good test of whether his quiet, careful style suits you.

Andrew Miller's books, ranked best first

The Land in Winter comes first, on 2 of the 10 lists it could have made, followed by Pure and Oxygen.

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