Top ten counter-factual novels

D. J. Taylor is a novelist, critic, and biographer whose Orwell won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. His most recent books are Kept; Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation; Ask Alice; Derby Day, which was nominated for the Booker Prize and was selected as a Washington Post Best Book of the Year; and the newest novel, The Windsor Faction.

For the Guardian he named his top ten counter-factual novels, including:

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)

The second world war from the other side of the Atlantic, where the aviator Charles Lindbergh rallies the nation's isolationists, defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and concludes an entente with Hitler (known as "the Iceland Understanding") which allows the US to stand aside from the war. All this naturally has dire consequences for America's Jewish population.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Plot Against America is on David Daw's list of five American presidents in alternate history, Katharine Trendacosta and Charlie Jane Anders's top ten list of epic power struggles, Steven Amsterdam's list of five top books on worry, Stephen L. Carter's list of five top presidential thrillers, and David Daw's list of five American presidents in alternate history.

--Marshal Zeringue