NEWS · PRIZES

The Booker 2026 shortlist is here!

Why I love literary prizes, even when I don’t love every winner.

1 October 2026

Let me tell you something: in this bookshop, we LOOOVE prizes. We would read them all if we could.

Unfortunately we don’t have the time or the funds, otherwise we would spend our days waiting for the next longlist to come out.

Why? You ask.

Well, it’s not because I think I will love them all, or because I think the judges have some kind of moral authority to decide these are the best books of the year. I don’t always like the winner either. But the way I see it, with so many books published every year and so little time to read, it cannot hurt to have a group of very consistent readers (the judges read 150+ books in just a few months) going through all of them on my behalf and telling me which ones they thought were the best.

“There is value in being challenged every now and then.”

Of course I will not love them all. I enjoy some more than others, but much as I love a comfy read, I am glad to be “forced” out of the usual every so often — out of the subjects I would have chosen for myself. That is what reading widely actually means.

Why? Again you ask. Because our minds look for the comfort of what we know, and that usually means choosing the same type of book and author again and again. That’s fine when we are mentally exhausted and want comfort, but there IS value in being challenged every now and then: reading about a topic that makes you uncomfortable, or opening the door to a writer you never heard of, from a country you know very little about.

This is especially true of the Booker Prizes (above all the International Booker, whose shortlist comes out in April), but it happens with lots of other prizes too.

So hear me out: if you’ve never cared much for prizes, take a look at this year’s shortlist. Read the descriptions, pick one or two that pique your interest, and add them to YOUR pile. Take what you like from their lists and make your own. ;)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026