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Where to Start With the Booker Prize 2026 Longlist
Thirteen novels, one shortlist in September, and not enough evenings. Here is what each book on the Booker 2026 longlist actually is, and which one I would open first.
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The Witch by Freida McFadden
An old woman sells herbs at the Woodhaven market in a dress of a yellow so vivid nobody else in town can manage it. She is the least dangerous person in the book and the first one hanged. The seventeenth-century half of this novel is far better than a mass-market thriller had any obligation to be.
Hollywood, Ending by John Green
In the back of a studio SUV, a publicist coaches a twenty-one-year-old on how to describe his costar to reporters. Ambitious is terrible. Careful is not great, but caring is wonderful. Beautiful is excellent, though he must not say it, only show it with his eyes. John Green's first adult novel begins where most Hollywood novels end.
Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger
A widow sits alone in a dark museum gallery for three years because it is the only place she can cry unobserved. That room, not the time travel, is where this sequel actually lives. Niffenegger has come back to Chicago to write about what people do in the hours before somebody dies.
Promise Me Never by Liv Constantine
A famous novelist sits in a locked office clicking through the bestseller list one title at a time, reading synopses, taking notes, hunting for something fresh enough to sell and familiar enough to be safe. He has three months to deliver. He does not have a story. Everything that follows grows out of that empty afternoon.
Scion by James Islington
A contract killer stands in a category three storm, soaked to the skin, politely negotiating with a lion the size of a horse. Islington's cyberpunk standalone is short, savage and much stranger than its premise suggests.
We Chase Shadows by Richard Osman
In a Hampshire pub garden, a woman who has sold more books than almost anyone alive is introduced to a stranger as Steve's mate. The second We Solve Murders novel is a comedy about murder and a much sadder book about market value.
In One Brief Moment All Eternity by Elif Shafak
A servant girl tells a frightened boy a story about a bird made of thirty birds, and fifty years and four hundred pages later he finds out what she meant. Elif Shafak's Flaubert novel is a chorus, and the man at its centre never gets a first-person sentence.
Book List
Feeling stuck in a reading rut? Our curated book lists are here to rescue you from the clutches of reader's block. Explore new genres, discover hidden gems, and find your next literary obsession with our expertly crafted recommendations.
Where to Start With the Booker Prize 2026 Longlist
Thirteen novels, one shortlist in September, and not enough evenings. Here is what each book on the Booker 2026 longlist actually is, and which one I would open first.
What to Read Before Nolan’s Odyssey
You have a ticket and not much time. Here is what I would actually read before Nolan's Odyssey, sorted by how many free evenings you have between now and the cinema.
Greek Myth Retellings to Read After Circe
Finishing Circe leaves a very specific hole. Here are the Greek myth retellings that actually fill it, and the ones that only pretend to.
Reader's Corner
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A Rebellion of Care by David Gate
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David Gate's debut poetry collection, A Rebellion of Care, emerges as a vital voice in contemporary literature, offering readers...
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The Witch by Freida McFadden
An old woman sells herbs at the Woodhaven market in a dress of a yellow so vivid nobody else in town can manage it. She is the least dangerous person in the book and the first one hanged. The seventeenth-century half of this novel is far better than a mass-market thriller had any obligation to be.
Hollywood, Ending by John Green
In the back of a studio SUV, a publicist coaches a twenty-one-year-old on how to describe his costar to reporters. Ambitious is terrible. Careful is not great, but caring is wonderful. Beautiful is excellent, though he must not say it, only show it with his eyes. John Green's first adult novel begins where most Hollywood novels end.
Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger
A widow sits alone in a dark museum gallery for three years because it is the only place she can cry unobserved. That room, not the time travel, is where this sequel actually lives. Niffenegger has come back to Chicago to write about what people do in the hours before somebody dies.
Artemis by Andy Weir
The dedication names seven astronauts nobody remembers: the Apollo command module pilots, who flew a quarter of a million miles and then waited in orbit while someone else got the footprints. Everything worth reading in this novel grows out of that page.
Promise Me Never by Liv Constantine
A famous novelist sits in a locked office clicking through the bestseller list one title at a time, reading synopses, taking notes, hunting for something fresh enough to sell and familiar enough to be safe. He has three months to deliver. He does not have a story. Everything that follows grows out of that empty afternoon.