18/08/2026
In case you missed it, the Booker Longlist was announced when we were in a field in Oxfordshire.
Here are our personal picks so far…
Aimeé - Douglas Stuart, John of John
Down and out art student Cal travels back home to a small Scottish island and his father, John. What follows is a beautiful examination of father-son relationships and a changing world.
Kate - Gwendoline Riley, The Palm House
Structured around a friendship on the rocks, this free-floating novel is a funny and thought provoking piece of auto fiction about London’s literary cultural milieu.
Mia - Luke Kennard, Black Bag
When an actor living pay-cheque to pay-cheque is offered a job by a psychology professor, he jumps at what will soon become the role of the lifetime: walking around in a Black Bag. Funny and unexpectedly profound.
Ben - Rebecca Perry, May We Feed The King
A curator of scenes in historic buildings, the attendant to a long-forgotten medieval king, this sparse, beautiful novel paints a portrait of figures that might be overlooked by history and the forces that drive that history.
Jane* - Makenna Goodman, Helen of Nowhere
A disgraced professor visits a house for sale in the countryside; what follows is a protean, thought-provoking conversation that transcends the boundaries of reality.
*Jane hasn’t actually read any of the books on the Longlist, but I (Ben here hi hello) recommended this to her and she’s gonna dig it. Can confirm that The Palm House and Black Bag are also completely great (yet to read John of John).
