2026 Booker Prize Longlist

It’s here! The booker longlist was announced today at 2pm BST. I did worse than usual on my prediction list, but I own quite a few of them and am excited to read them. Here is the list…

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• The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis. Published by Chatto & Windus
• Switzy by Emma Cline. Published by Chatto & Windus
• Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman. Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
• The End of Everything by John Harrison. Published by Serpent’s Tail
• The Disappearers by Marlon James. Published by Hamish Hamilton
• Black Bag by Luke Kennard. Published by John Murray
• The Renovation by Kenan Orhan. Published by Hamish Hamilton
• May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry. Published by Granta
• The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley. Published by Picador
• The Things we never say by Elizabeth Strout. Published by Viking
• John of John by Douglas Stuart. Published by Picator
• All Them Dogs by Djamel White. Published by John Murray
• The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams. Published by 4th Estate

So how did our panel do? I got a stellar 1 correct with the most obvious pick of John of John (pretty sure that pick made all the lists). I’m pretty stunned that Ben Lerner’s book did not make the list. I’ve only read The Things We Never Say and I liked it quite a bit but didn’t think it would make the list. I should probably know better than to ever to bet against Strout.

Tracy was the most successful of our panel with 4 correct predictions: John of John, Vivisectors, The Disappearers, and May We Feed the King. Like myself, Anita predicted John of John correctly. And bring up the rear, Nicole and Lisa both failed to pick any of the longlist.

How did our AI competitors do? Chat GPT initially predicted 2 (John of John and The Disappearers) but it gets a point off for failing to put the actual title of Marlon’s book. When I asked chat GPT a few days later it came up with a new list in which it got zero correct. Gemini predicted three correctly: The Things We Never Say, John of John, and The Palm House. Perplexity AI predicted John of John and The end of Everything. Claude also predicted two correctly: John of John and The Palm House.

So our big winner was Tracy with 4 correct and our AI winner was Gemini with 3 correct.

Tomorrow our panel will post our initial impressions of the longlist along with which books we are most and least excited to read. Stay tuned!

We want to hear from you: What do you think of of the list? If you made predictions how many did you get correct? Which of the books are you most excited about?