Literary Fiction
Fallow by Sarah Anderson
A spoiler-free review of Fallow by Sarah Anderson: a woman with no dental insurance signs a ten-year contract to carry seven babies for the executives of a company that w…
Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason
A spoiler-free review of Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason: a festival sound technician, newly and unwillingly single, falls privately in love with a famous novelist sh…
Hollywood, Ending by John Green
Juniper Castillo can hold her pulse at eighty while somebody hits her. Her mother taught her that. Nine years later she is twenty-two, sober, ferociously prepared, and ab…
Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger
Twenty-three years after The Time Traveler's Wife, Niffenegger hands the disorder to Henry and Clare's daughter. Alba has two husbands, a safe house she has owned since 1…
Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead
Every bank in New York turns down Ray Carney's wife for a loan, so the furniture man goes back to fencing. The last Harlem Trilogy novel runs from 1981 to 1986 and asks o…
Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
A furniture dealer four years out of the crooked life needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter, and the only man who can get them is a corrupt detective with a subpoena a…
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
A furniture salesman with a business degree, a signed photo of Lena Horne, and a cousin who cannot stop volunteering him for robberies. Whitehead's Harlem novel is a heis…
In One Brief Moment All Eternity by Elif Shafak
Emma Bovary opens the book by putting her author on trial, and thirty women take the stand after her. Elif Shafak's life of Gustave Flaubert is a biography told entirely …
The Disappearers by Marlon James
Seven men rehearse a gay prison play in 1988 Kingston. One night a crowd arrives, and two of the cast are never seen again. Marlon James has written the longest, hardest …
Black Bag by Luke Kennard
A broke actor is paid to attend university lectures zipped inside a leather bag, and finds the first role he has ever been perfectly suited to. Luke Kennard has written t…
The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams
A ghostwriter with no personality is sent to befriend the student at the centre of a university scandal, in a city being swallowed by its own park. Missouri Williams has …
Switzy by Emma Cline
A retired executive with Alzheimer's flies a borrowed private jet across Europe to an assisted-dying clinic, with two stops to make first. Emma Cline's fourth book is the…
All Them Dogs by Djamel White
A West Dublin enforcer comes home with a killing behind him and falls for the man he takes his orders from. Djamel White's debut is the loudest, funniest and most frighte…
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan
The builders were supposed to fit a bathroom. They fitted a working cell from a Turkish prison. Kenan Orhan's debut is the funniest book on the Booker Prize 2026 longlist…
The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis
A dog bite in Mexico City, a German collector of magic lanterns, and a friendship that lasts a handful of nights. Chloe Aridjis has written the most beautiful sentences o…
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
A woman who arranges fake food in historic houses finds a king nobody wanted to remember. Rebecca Perry's debut is the quiet triumph of the Booker Prize 2026 longlist.
The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
The sea keeps washing up things that learn to talk. Harrison's first novel in six years is the strangest and most beautiful book on the Booker Prize 2026 longlist, and th…
The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley
Two friends in a pub by the Thames, a magazine falling into the wrong hands, and a chapter that will knock the wind out of you. Gwendoline Riley's eighth novel is the fin…
Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman
A disgraced professor tours a house in the country and is offered something stranger than a mortgage. Makenna Goodman's short, savage novel is the most formally daring bo…
The Booker Prize 2026 Longlist: All 13 Books Explained
All thirteen novels on the Booker Prize 2026 longlist, what each one is about, what the judges said, and our ranked prediction for the 9 November winner.
The Acorn Stories: Texas Tales by Duane Simolke
Step into Acorn, Texas (population 21,001), in this in-depth review of The Acorn Stories: Texas Tales by Duane Simolke. Linked literary short stories full of secrets, sca…
The Astral Library by Kate Quinn
Kate Quinn ventures into magical realism with The Astral Library, a fierce love letter to libraries where books choose their readers and stories fight back. A sharp, witt…
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Discover why Kiran Desai’s latest novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, is a poignant exploration of identity, cultural displace…
An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park
Dive into Ed Park’s An Oral History of Atlantis, a mesmerizing short story collection that blends speculative fiction, emotional depth, and formal innovation. This review…