fiction | The Reader's Room

Aug 22

2025 Booker Longlist: Audition by Katie Kitamura

Our panel’s first longlist nominee is Audition by Katie Kitamura. Four of our panelists read this book, one panelist couldn’t finish it. Here are our panelists’ reviews…

Jul 21

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2025 Booker Prize Longlist Predictions

Once again Booker has rolled around. Every year our panel comes together to read and review all the booker nominees and to predict the winners. This year’s longlist will be announced on July 29. Every year we try and most years we fail spectacularly to get more than 3 correct predictions each. Will we have better luck this year? Keep reading to find out who we all selected and let us know what you think.

Jun 10

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Audition by Katie Kitamura

Life has been hectic so the blog has been slow/dormant for a few months. Despite my silence, I’ve been reading a decent amount and trying to go into Booker season with more books under my belt. Audition has been getting some very mixed reviews and I know quite a few people who hated it and abandoned it. Keep reading for my review. Will this make my prediction list for this year’s Booker longlist?

Jan 10

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The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

Those of you who have followed the blog for a while already know that Murakami is one of my favorite authors so it’s probably no surprise that I picked a Murakami novel as my first read of the year. 2024 was less than stellar for me from a reading perspective. Work burnout and life stress left me with little energy and motivation to read (outside of our Booker feature) and even less time. So I go into 2025 hoping for a better reading year and I always enjoy a good Murakami novel. Did this book live up to my expectation? keep reading to find out.

Nov 11

Booker 2024 Winner predictions

It’s time for our panel to pick our winner. Find out which book our panelists think will win the prize this year. The prize will be announced tomorrow (and thus the reason for why I pushed out the last three posts in the same day.

Nov 11

Booker shortlist 2024: Held by Anne Michaels

Apologies for rushing through these last three posts but time got away from me and I wanted to post this last one before our predictions post (which I will also post tonigh). Our panel had somewhat mixed reviews for Held. You can read our short reviews here: Held. The novel made it onto 3 of our predictions lists with Nicole, Tracy, and Anita predicting it. The Booker judges had this to say about the book…

‘The first few pages of this brief kaleidoscopic novel from the author of Fugitive Pieces may seem forbidding, yet every member of the judging panel was transported by this book. Michaels, a poet, is utterly uncompromising in her vision and execution. She is writing about war, trauma, science, faith and above all love and human connection; her canvas is a century of busy history, but she connects the fragments of her story through theme and image rather than character and chronology, intense moments surrounded by great gaps of space and time. Appropriately for a novel about consciousness, it seems to alter and expand your state of mind. Reading it is a unique experience.’

What does our panel think of the odds of this book being this year’s winner? Keep reading to find out

Nov 11

Booker Shortlist 2024: Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

The verdict was also unanimous on this book: Our whole panel loved it. You can read our short reviews here: Stone Yard Devotional. The Booker judges had this to say about the book…

‘Sometimes a visitor becomes a resident, and a temporary retreat becomes permanent. This happens to the narrator in Stone Yard Devotional – a woman with seemingly solid connections to the world who changes her life and settles into a monastery in rural Australia. Yet no shelter is impermeable. The past, in the form of the returning bones of an old acquaintance, comes knocking at her door; the present, in the forms of a global pandemic and a local plague of mice and rats, demands her attention. The novel thrilled and chilled the judges – it’s a book we can’t wait to put into the hands of readers.’

You can read more about the novel and an author interview on the booker prize website: here.

What does our panel think of the odds of this book being this year’s winner? Keep reading to find out

Nov 10

Booker 2024 Shortlist: The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Our panel reviewed the Safekeep (you can read our reviews here) favorably and it made it onto 3 of our predictions lists – Nicole, Tracy, and Lisa called it. The Booker judges had this to say about the book

‘Set in the early 1960s in the Netherlands in an isolated house, The Safekeep draws us into a world as carefully calibrated as a Dutch still-life. Every piece of crockery or silverware is accounted for here. Isa is the protagonist – a withdrawn figure who is safeguarding this inheritance. When her brother brings his new girlfriend Eva into this household the energy field changes as we sense boundaries of possession being crossed, other histories coming into the light. We loved this debut novel for its remarkable inhabitation of obsession. It navigates an emotional landscape of loss and return in an unforgettable way.’

What does our panel think of the odds of this book being this year’s winner? Keep reading to find out

Nov 8

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Booker shortlist 2024: Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

Our panel was very mixed on this book and so is the literary community. You can read our short reviews here: Creation Lake. The novel made it onto 2 of our predictions lists (Jen and Lisa correctly predicted it). The Booker judges had this to say about the book…

‘Sadie Smith – not her real name – is an FBI agent turned spy-for-hire, whose latest mission is to infiltrate a commune of eco-activists in rural France. She’s an extraordinary creation: sharp-minded, iron-willed, accustomed to moving fast and breaking things. As she investigates the group, she hacks into emails from their guru, a shadowy eccentric who has withdrawn from modernity into the ancient caves that dot the landscape; he has some beguiling ideas about the role of Neanderthals through history. What’s so electrifying about this novel is the way it knits contemporary politics and power with a deep counter-history of human civilisation. We found the prose thrilling, the ideas exciting, the book as a whole a profound and irresistible page-turner.’

You can read more about the novel and an author interview on the booker prize website: here.

What does our panel think of the odds of this book being this year’s winner? Keep reading to find out

Nov 1

Booker Shortlist 2024: Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Next up for our shortlist musings is Orbital by Samantha Harvey. The majority of our panel was underwhelmed by this book. You can read our short reviews here: Orbital. The novel only made it onto 2 of our predictions lists (Jen and Anita correctly predicted it). The Booker judges had this to say about the book…

‘Samantha Harvey’s compact yet beautifully expansive novel invites us to observe Earth’s splendour from the drifting perspective of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station as they navigate bereavement, loneliness and mission fatigue. Moving from the claustrophobia of their cabins to the infinitude of space, from their wide-ranging memories to their careful attention to their tasks, from searching metaphysical inquiry to the spectacle of the natural world, Orbital offers us a love letter to our planet as well as a deeply moving acknowledgement of the individual and collective value of every human life.’

You can read more about the novel and an author interview on the booker prize website: here.

What does our panel think of the odds of this book being this year’s winner? Keep reading to find out