Booker Longlist 2026: Books #2 and #3

Well, the time has rolled around for the Booker Prize longlist again! The thirteen titles in contention are:

1. The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis
2. Switzy by Emma Cline
3. Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman
4. The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
5. The Disappearers by Marlon James
6. Black Bag by Luke Kennard
7. The Renovation by Kenan Orhan
✅8. May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry: 8.5/10
✅9. The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley: 6/10
✅10. The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: 9.5/10
11. John of John by Douglas Stuart
12. All Them Dogs by Djamel White
13. The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams

I had already read the Strout book prior to the list (review is here), but have decided to take a tilt at banging through the rest of the longlist in advance of shortlist announcement in late September. We'll see how we go! I'll tick each title on the list as I cover it.

Kicking off, here are two of the shorties (under 250pp) that I started with. I listened to the audiobook of The Palm House (it was 4hr 15min, not a long one) and read May We Feed the King on Kindle (it's around 220pp). My verdict - one I really rate, the other not so much, but neither was a true Booker Stinker (history suggests there will be at least two, up to four, complete head-scratchers lurking in the list). I'm not doing cover art for these posts, so it will just be text.

Next up for me are The Vivisectors (Kindle) and The End of Everything (audiobook). Hoping to be reporting on them by the weekend!


May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry (Debut novel): 8.5/10

I really liked this book - the tone, the mood, the affect, even the lack of resolution. It's no surprise to me to learn that the author is a debut novelist but an established poet - there is a lilt to the language and a careful placement of phrases that is very in line with how poets nurture and cherish words. 

The concept is relatively simple - an unnamed narrator works as a historical scene curator, and gets a gig curating a certain number of rooms for the 750th anniversary celebrations of an unnamed castle in a unnamed (but heavily English-coded) location. As they begin the work, they search the archives for a hook - a historical moment or record to tie their re-enactment to - and find the records of a diffident king who clearly didn't want the power he unexpectedly got after the deaths of his two elder brothers. The curator then is able to imaginatively enter into the Reluctant King's world.

I was intrigued by Unnamed Protagonist and their mysteriouus grief, and genuinely interested in the art of historical scene curation, but I was compelled by the timeslip imagined story of the Reluctant King, for whom I felt both great pity and great sadness. It must, of course, have been the case over time that there have been rulers who wanted no part of rule and struggled with it, but it's rare to get such a potent dream-like insight into what that might be like to actually live. I think Perry carries it off triumphantly in this book.

A great choice for the Booker longlist, and happy to have found it via that mechanism.


The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley: 6/10

I found this book quite mid. It was formless and plotless, and for a book to carry that for me, it has to have a beautiful touch with language OR some very big, interesting ideas, and this had neither. I also disliked one of the main characters, terminally aggrieved thinky-magazine editor Putnam, to such an extent that it soured me on all the sections focused on him (I feel like I have met one too many Putnams in the arts-adjacent world over the years).

On the other hand, I both liked and sympathised with the narrator, Putnam's friend Laura, and the chapters focused on her life, and particularly her relationship with her mother, were really well done and engaging. Although I didn't enjoy reading it (it was highly uncomfortable), I also thought the story of her groupiedom and subsequent abuse by a celebrity were powerfully conveyed and effective.

On balance, therefore, a decent book, but probably not really in the same class as some of its Booker longlist competitors. Nonetheless, it has redeeming elements of interest (I definitely wouldn't call it an awful book.) 

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