A Personal Take on the Books Listed for the Booker Prize 2026

I have been reading the books listed for the Booker Prize 2026, and I have completed as many as I have chosen to read. As in every list, there are books which I would happily accept as the winner, and there are books which took every ounce of my desire to complete. 

Here is the list in its entirety, with the short list italicized:

The Shadow of The Object by Chloe Aridgis 

Switzy by Emma Cline 

Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman

The Renovation by Kenan Orhan

The Palm House by Gwendolyn’s Riley

All Them Dogs by Djamal White

The Vivesectors by Missouri Williams

The End of Everything by M. John Harrison

The Disappearers by Marlong James

Black Bag by Luke Kennard

May We Fed the King by Rebecca Perry

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

John of John by Douglas Stuart

As I read, I recorded passages from some my favorites which I will post for you here as they give a gentle indication of each book.

“Sometimes, an animal leaves its mark on you forever.”

“You’ll see when you’re older that currents quicken when you’re happy.”

“People are not composed of your thoughts, a counselor once said to me.”

“…sometimes life still throws up its gems and takes you by surprise. That’s what makes it worth living.”

“Activities in which I are rarely partook were now off limits and therefore more attractive.”

“Perhaps the moment had come to forsake some of the fantasies and go off-piste.”

“‘Sales and Wants’: a surge in desire followed by a melancholic dip, a constant yen for addition and subtraction, though most of what we want to sell off or acquire is not so tangible or easy to define.”

“Someone had told him once: You should always leave a party right when you think to yourself, I’m having such a good time at this party. Because after that, they had said, the night could only go downhill.”

“Perhaps his entire life had been a form of that wish. To be somewhere else. To hurry this along.”

“I told her (the realtor) this was something I had taught my students, that definitions differ depending on who says the word.” 

“To teach is one of life’s most complex gestures, and its most humane.”

“A taker thinks about how much they need, not about how their needs fulfillment might affect others. Whereas a doer is a person who takes positive action to benefit others…Takers who really think that they’re doers are worse than takers who just take.”

“The see-saw of life just tips, doesn’t it?” he said. “And then it is downhill all the way.”

“I’ve had to work quite hard to keep this place. I’ve sometimes had to be tougher than I wanted.”

“Some people missed one thing from the pre-disaster world, some people missed another. Everyone had their favorite.”

“Age is an immense sadness that seems to be folded into everything.”

“When you come upon a room, cordoned off with red rope, beyond which you see an open book on a desk, a chunk of bread picked hollow, and a quill in an ink pot that is empty of ink, I am telling you something about the person who lives in that room. The ink may be purple, and even though no one can see it in the straightforward sense, one in a thousand people will sense it. Ultimately, it is those people I really hold in my mind.”

“… something like “Why don’t people ever say anything real?”And now he knew why. Because to say anything real was to say things that nobody wanted to know. Or if they wanted to know they would not care in the right way. Or even understand. It was a private thing, to be alive. He understood this now.”

“All of us live with a huge blind spot before our eyes, meaning that no matter what we think we now, we can never fully understand how we appear to others. This was true for Artie Dam.”

“Fears are very often private things. Part of being human is realizing how…well, how private our fears are.” 

“Artie tapped his own forehead. ‘Remember to keep all the fuck you's right up here. Think them if you need to, but keep them up here.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, okay, I will.’ Danny gave a small laugh, and then he said, ‘You do that too,’ and Artie laughed loudly and said, ‘Okay, we have a deal.’”

“I am not the man I set out to be…He was caught between his lover, his son, and his Maker. And he was a disappointment to all.”

“He knew from the island talk how rich White Americans had turned their backs on tailored clothing and on tweed in particular. Their collective tastes were turning to branded street wear, athletic clothing, and they seemed desperate to emulate the Black people they otherwise looked down upon. It was a whole continent of people growing too comfortable to dress properly anymore. They were always wanting cheaper,, always wanting faster, and as their bodies turned to fat, they had become obsessed with wrapping their softness in more softness.”

My personal short list would be comprised of The Shadow of the Object, Switzy, The Renovation, The Palm House, The Things We Never Say, and John of John. But, we will see which one the judges have declared winner on Monday, November 9, 2026. You can watch it live-streamed on the Booker Prize Channels on YouTube and Instagram around 9:45 p.m. GMT.