books
February 16, 2026
More heartache than Hamnet?: Maggie O’Farrell’s best books
As her Women’s prize-winning novel heads to the Oscars, we rate the author’s best work – from tales of new motherhood to a life-affirming memoir of mortality
TL;DR
- The article ranks Maggie O'Farrell's books, with 'Hamnet' (2020) rated as her best work, focusing on Agnes Hathaway's grief.
- Other highly rated novels include 'I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death' (2017), a memoir on mortality, and 'The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox' (2006), a historical fiction about family secrets.
- Recurring themes across O'Farrell's work include new motherhood, intersecting with previous generations' trauma, heritage, journeys, and identity reconfigurations.
- The article also covers novels like 'My Lover's Lover' (2002), 'The Distance Between Us' (2004), 'The Hand That First Held Mine' (2010), 'After You’d Gone' (2000), 'Instructions for a Heatwave' (2013), 'The Marriage Portrait' (2022), and 'This Must Be the Place' (2016).
Continue reading the original article