Jack Maggs

Peter Carey's audacious reimagining of Great Expectations flips Dickens on his head, following the convict Maggs from Australia back to 1830s London on a dangerous quest. It's muscular, darkly comic, and brilliantly subversive—a story about class, exile, and the stories we tell about ourselves. Carey's prose crackles with energy, and his London is grimy, vivid, and utterly alive. Perfect for readers who love literary fiction with bite, colonial history told slant, and characters who refuse to stay in their assigned roles.