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Martin Amis’s first novel, The Rachel Papers (1973), won the Somerset Maugham Award, the prize his father, Kingsley, had won for Lucky Jim nineteen years earlier. Kingsley gave up on Money (1984) partway through and, his son said, threw it across the room. London Fields (1989) was left off the Booker shortlist after the judges disagreed over its treatment of women; Time’s Arrow (1991), the life of a Nazi doctor told backwards, made the shortlist. His memoir Experience (2000) is about his father and the murder of his cousin Lucy Partington by Fred West. He died of oesophageal cancer at his home in Florida on 19 May 2023, the day Jonathan Glazer’s film of his novel The Zone of Interest (2014) had its premiere at Cannes; it went on to win the Grand Prix and two Academy Awards. The ten writers below share his subjects, money, sex, violence and the city, and his belief that style is the point.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · British fiction · Satire and the London novel · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
If you love Martin Amis, start with Saul Bellow, his mentor and friend, whose Humboldt’s Gift (1975) has the same big, talking narrator, and Vladimir Nabokov, the stylist Amis learned from and wrote about in Visiting Mrs Nabokov (1993). Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim (1954) is where the family comedy began. Further down are the friends and rivals of his London generation, and Zadie Smith, who writes a very different London.
10 authors like Martin Amis
Where to start if you loved Martin Amis
If you want his mentor, read Saul Bellow.
Humboldt’s Gift (1975) is the Bellow novel nearest to Amis.
If you want where the comedy began, read Kingsley Amis.
Lucky Jim (1954) is short and still funny.
If you want the stylist he learned from, read Vladimir Nabokov.
Lolita (1955), or Pnin (1957) for something gentler.
If you want the argument in nonfiction, read Christopher Hitchens.
Hitch-22 (2010) includes their friendship.
If you want to go back to Amis, start with Money.
Then read Time’s Arrow (1991) and his memoir Experience (2000).
Frequently asked questions about authors like Martin Amis
Who writes like Martin Amis?
Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov and Kingsley Amis are the closest: Bellow for the talking narrator, Nabokov for the seductive style, Kingsley Amis for the comedy of bad behaviour.
What should I read after Money?
Try Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift (1975), Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust (1934) or Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985).
Is Martin Amis like his father, Kingsley Amis?
In comedy, yes; in style, no. Kingsley wrote plainer prose and disliked his son’s showy style; Martin said his father gave up on Money partway through.
Does Martin Amis have a new book?
No. Amis died on 19 May 2023; his last novel was Inside Story (2020). Jonathan Glazer’s film of The Zone of Interest, loosely based on his 2014 novel, premiered at Cannes the day he died and won the Grand Prix and two Academy Awards.
Which Martin Amis book should I read first?
Money (1984); then Time’s Arrow (1991), shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Experience (2000), which won the James Tait Black Prize.
Why did Martin Amis and Julian Barnes fall out?
Amis left his agent, Pat Kavanagh, who was Barnes’s wife, for Andrew Wylie around the time of The Information (1995), and the two never resolved it.
Sources
List last reviewed 31 October 2026.
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