The Booker Prize longlist will be released this Tuesday, and while I’d never be so bold as to make predictions about a notoriously hard-to-predict award, today I’ll share some books I think are worthy of the honour. But first, the roundup.
Roundup
Music
Last week saw the release of three great albums, from artists at different levels of fame: pop cultural flashpoint Gracie Abrams’ highly anticipated Daughter From Hell; sneakily famous and important Steve Lacy’s Oh yeah?; and mostly under the radar Nia Archives’ Emotional Junglist. Abrams’ album will work great if you like her music and songwriting; these are not musically interesting songs, and the writing can feel a bit out of touch at times, but there are some definite bops here and she earns her ‘voice of a generation’ title. The albums from Steve Lacy and Nia Archives are a lot more ambitious, doing more interesting things in terms of music, production, and writing. Yesterday’s biggest release was Charli xcx’s Music, Fashion, Film. As much as her too cool for school, pop culture troll persona annoys me, I can’t deny it’s a really good album that suggests she’s at least as annoyed by her shtick as I am. I also enjoyed Amy Shark’s Soft Pop, which features stripped back production (there isn’t even a single drum on the album) and intimate songwriting.
Albums
- Daughter From Hell (Gracie Abrams)
- Oh yeah? (Steve Lacy)
- Emotional Junglist (Nia Archives)
- Music, Fashion, Film (Charli xcx)
- Soft Pop (Amy Shark)
- The Thread (WILLOW)
- LOVE IS THE LAW (Love Spells)
Songs
- “The Knife” (Gracie Abrams)
- “Boys in Blue” (Nia Archives)
- “Heart for Eyes” (Love Spells”
- “RUMOURS” (Elle Cove)
Reading
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook (Matt Dinniman, 2021)
- Take Me With You (Steven Rowley, 2026)
- Heartstopper, Vol. 6 (Alice Oseman, 2026)
- Question 7 (Richard Flanagan, 2023)
- Bellwether (Connie Willis, 1996)
- Cascade Failure and Gravity Lost (L.M. Saga, both 2024)
- Astronaut! (Oana Aristide, 2026)
- What Am I, a Deer? (Polly Barton, 2026)
- Benbecula (Graeme Macrae Burnet, 2025)
- Departure(s) (Julian Barnes, 2026)
Focus on: Booker Prize Longlist Wish List
The Booker Prize longlist for 2026 will be released on Tuesday. Literary prizes are a lot less predictable than other media awards, and the Booker is probably the most unpredictable of the lot. It often feels like the judges go out of their way to select titles no one has heard of, let alone read! People who spend a lot of time studying trends and analyzing the publisher submission formula consider themselves luck to successfully predict more than one of the twelve to thirteen titles. So I’m not going to throw my hat into that losing battle. But here are a few of the qualifying books I’ve read this year that I think are deserving of this honour:
- Floodlines (Saleem Haddad)
- Son of Nobody (Yann Martel 🇨🇦)
- Transcription (Ben Lerner)
- John of John (Douglas Stuart)
- Astronaut! (Oana Aristide)
- Departure(s) (Julian Barnes)
One I think is less likely (it’s more of a ‘Pulitzer Book’ than a ‘Booker Book’ (if you know you know)), but would be an interesting inclusion if they wanted to add something more popular would be Ann Patchett’s Whistler.
But of course the Booker being the Booker, none of these will probably make the list…. Either way, I’m excited!
Matthew Root 