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Where to start reading David Szalay’s books

Where to start reading David Szalay’s books

by Annie Rose and Gabriela Quattromini

13 November 2025

min read

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From Canada to Vienna, with pit stops in London and Budapest between, literary heavyweight David Szalay’s globe-trotting upbringing and adult life have deeply influenced his six extraordinary works of fiction. His latest novel, Flesh was awarded the prestigious 2025 Booker Prize.

There is so much to explore within Szalay's books, so here is our guide to his captivating, nuanced, and deeply moving writing. They span themes of modern masculinity, human relationships, class, power, transience, and the political and social landscape of contemporary Europe, told in a style of writing that is sparing yet powerful, and pushes the boundaries of narrative form.

The best David Szalay book to read first

All That Man Is  (2016)

David Szalay’s fourth novel landed him onto the shortlist for the Booker Prize for the first time in 2016, and serves as an excellent place to start if you're new to his writing. A visceral portrayal of the isolations and disappointments of modern existence, All That Man Is sees nine individual human stories – each portraying men away from home at a different stage of life – come together. Through masterful, moving storytelling, Szalay highlights the reality of life in all its messy, riotous, shocking, despicable, poignant, ludicrous glory. 

David Szalay's most notable book

Flesh (2025)

If you loved All That Man Is, you shouldn’t hesitate to turn to Szalay's Booker-winning 2025 novel Flesh. The novel follows István, a boy from Hungary propelled from a turbulent childhood to military combat, to the elite echelons of London society, in a life that soon spirals out of his control. It has garnered countless rave reviews, but the Booker Prize judges arguably put it best: “Using only the sparest of prose, this hypnotically tense and compelling book becomes an astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life”.

David Szalay's first novel

London and the South-East (2009)

Szalay’s debut novel still resonates as a darkly comic, razor-sharp satire that follows Paul Rainey, an ad salesman with a substance abuse problem who is deeply dissatisfied with his life. When he receives a fortuitously timed job offer from an old friend, Paul finds himself plunged into a much more peculiar life than he ever thought possible. This compulsive read explores what it is like to be a man staring down the barrel of obsolescence, the lies we tell ourselves, and the lives of ordinary Londoners (with some very accurate, grueling depictions of rush hour to boot).

More must-read books by David Szalay

Turbulence (2018)

Another accessible way into Szalay’s work, this short story collection follows twelve people scattered across the globe, each caught in a moment of personal upheaval and linked, however tenuously, to each other. Through their intersecting lives, Szalay examines how individual choices – made in awareness or in ignorance – create a ripple effect, shaping the lives of others and exposing the way our seemingly atomised actions bind us all. Turbulence is quietly powerful meditation on consequence, connection, and the fragile balance of human relationships.

Spring (2011)  

Anyone who enjoys reading about the messiness of relationships will revel in this romance story with an edge. Spring introduces us to James, a once-wealthy entrepreneur and gambler, and Katherine a perpetual underachiever recently separated from her husband – two people adrift in the uneasy aftermath of ambition and loss. The pair cross paths at a wedding and find themselves drawn into an unpredictable relationship, in a novel that captures the small humiliations and fleeting hopes that define modern love.

The Innocent  (2009) 

Something of a departure from what we have now come to expect from Szalay, The Innocent proves his range as an author as a searing and gripping thriller set in Communist Russia. Aleksandr, a major in the MBG, the precursor to the KGB, was sent to an isolated psychiatric clinic to investigate one of the patients, a man long presumed dead. Twenty-four years later, he remains haunted by the case. As the Cold War begins to wind down, he examines his mind and the lasting effect the case had on himself and those he loved most. 

How do you pronounce David Szalay’s name?

Szalay, a Hungarian surname, is pronounced Sol-loy.

How many books has David Szalay written?

David Szalay has written six books as of 2025, including five novels – Spring, The Innocent, London and the South-East, All That Man Is, and Flesh, which won the Booker Prize in 2025 – and one short story collection: Turbulence.

Which awards has David Szalay won?

David Szalay won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2025 for Flesh. His other prizes and accolades include the Betty Trask Prize and Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for his 2009 novel London and the South-East, and the Gordon Burn prize for his 2016 novel All That Man Is.

He also received The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for Fiction for two published novellas, the Edge Hill Prize for his short story collection Turbulence, and in 2016 All That Man Is was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

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David Szalay

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