A London diary entry on the Booker Dozen, feeling like a fraud at a literary event, and the genuinely useful panic of a good reading list
The Booker Prize longlist was announced this week, thirteen novels making up this year’s Booker Dozen, and I sat in the room for the announcement feeling genuinely fraudulent the moment someone next to me casually mentioned she’d already read four of them.
Why This Particular Longlist Announcement Hit Differently Than Previous Years
I usually catch the Booker news secondhand, a headline scrolled past on my phone, and this year, having actually gone along in person, the whole thing felt considerably more consequential watching thirteen titles get read aloud one by one rather than simply skimming a list later that evening.
What It Actually Felt Like Being The Least-Read Person In A Room Full Of Enthusiasts
Slightly mortifying, honestly, though also strangely motivating. There’s a specific kind of gentle shame that comes from standing in a room of people genuinely excited about longform fiction while realising your own reading this year has mostly consisted of half-finished paperbacks abandoned on the Tube.
How I’ve Actually Approached Catching Up Since The Announcement
I ordered the first three titles that were described to me with the most genuine excitement by strangers in that room, treating word-of-mouth enthusiasm as a more reliable guide than any review I could have read myself, and I’ve already started the first one on my actual commute this week.
What Made This Year’s Selection Process Feel Particularly Notable
The prize celebrates any nationality writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland across the past year, and hearing the range of backgrounds and styles represented across just thirteen books made the whole longlist feel considerably more expansive than I’d previously given the prize credit for.
Whether I Think I’ll Actually Make It Through All Thirteen Before The Shortlist
Realistically, no, but I’m genuinely going to try for more than my usual zero, and there’s something quite nice about having a proper, external deadline nudging me back into reading longform fiction rather than doom-scrolling on the sofa every evening. The panic of feeling under-read in a room full of enthusiasts turned out to be exactly the kick I apparently needed.