2025 Booker Prize speculation

[Ruben]

Great list, thanks for all the compilation work!

11 women, wow.

I have an overlap of 7 with my predictions.

I really didn't like Dream Hotel and would gladly switch it for Dusk or Stag Dance.

[bom.dia]

Interesting list. Thanks for assembling it. I'm looking forward to an August full of Booker readings (from the people's longlist I only read 2 😢)

[Garrett]

I'm planning on finishing Sonia and Sunny before Tuesday. Little less that 100 pages to go. I like it, don't love it. I think the focus is a little scattershot, leaving to a bit of an empty-feeling overall narrative. I really like the love story, the family drama, and themes of trauma and culture at the center. Some characters I can take or leave. Overall a solid novel, but not one I'm dying for on the LL unfortunately.

That said, I did predict it before I started reading it, so I'm sticking to my guns there.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

It’s the artist character I don’t like and unfortunately he kept reappearing together also with that odd amulet.

[Garrett]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "It’s the artist character I don’t like and unfortunately he kept reappearing together also with that odd amulet."

I think the amulet is a good thematic representation of lingering and haunting trauma, but it wasn't entirely central to the narrative and only appeared when the author needed a wink-nudge moment in my opinion.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell– 58 votes
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien – 52 votes
Audition by Katie Kitamura– 50 votes
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst – 46 votes
Endling by Maria Reva – 45 votes
We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown  – 39 votes
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai – 37 votes
Flesh by David Szalay  – 35 votes
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami– 33 votes
Ripeness by Sarah Moss – 32 votes
Helm by Sarah Hall  – 30 votes
The City Changes Its Face by Eimeear McBride – 30 votes
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko – 27 votes
 
And then in order:
 
Just missed out: Open Heaven (26), Theft (26), The Emperor of Gladness (25)
 
More than 20 Votes: The Book of Guilt, What We Can Know (*)
 
15-19 votes: Theory and Practice, Saraswati, Gliff, Juice, Universality, Days of Light, The Land In Winter, The Girls Who Grew Big
 
9-14 votes: Will There Ever Be Another You, A Room Above A Shop, The Imagined Life, Call Me Ishamelle, Flashlight (*), Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way(*), The Tiny Things Are Heavier, The Benefactors, The Names, Twist, Dream Count, Mothers and Sons, Fundamentally, Ghost Wedding, The Artist, Three Days in June, Time of The Child, Dusk, Muckleflugga, Seascraper, Nova Scotia House (*), Stag Dance, The Antidote

(*) I have not read – 4/49

[ANC]

Wow, every one has got votes. Looks like readers didn't discover anything new or unusual outside the Listopia. Hope the judges give us some pleasant surprise discoveries!

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

There were 159 books that got votes - just listed top ones here.

[Cindy]

Because I shared the predictions from The Times, I thought it was only fair also to share the predictions from The Guardian:

Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah and Flesh by David Szalay are the titles to put your money on for this year’s Booker longlist, according to critics: three of the four we spoke to suggested them as probable picks.

Set between Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, Theft – Gurnah’s first novel since becoming Nobel laureate in 2021 – is a coming-of-age story following the intertwined lives of a trio of young people. Flesh, meanwhile, traces the story of one man, István, from teenagehood to midlife.

Audition by Katie Kitamura and Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser are also likely contenders, both independently put forward by two critics. (Audition is also one of Evie Wyld’s picks – read below why she loves it.)

Anthony Cummins – whose “long-range punt” that Samantha Harvey’s Orbital could win the 2024 Booker in an edition of this newsletter last summer turned out to be bang on – said that the “concept and style of Sarah Hall’s Helm (out on 28 July) make it a good shout not only for the longlist but the prize itself”.

Though Cummins notes he hasn’t yet read some forthcoming books by past winners and nominees who are eligible this year: Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, Amity by Nathan Harris, Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood and What We Can Know by Ian McEwan.

There’s a “decent chance” the forthcoming McEwan will be on the longlist, says critic Beejay Silcox. “I just finished reading it and it’s a big crowd pleaser, in the mode of AS Byatt’s Possession with a hint of Emily St John Mandel.” The novel, set nearly a century in the future in a UK partly submerged by rising seas, will be published in September.

Along with Theory & Practice, Cummins would “love to see” Wendy Erskine’s The Benefactors and John Patrick McHugh’s Fun and Games on the list. “I think Erskine will make the shortlist at least”, he adds. Other “solid bets” for the longlist are Claire Adam’s Love Forms, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count, and Susan Choi’s Flashlight along with Gurnah’s Theft.

Michael Donkor – a critic whose most recent novel is Grow Where They Fall – thinks Gurnah’s Theft and Alan Hollinghurst’s “stunning” book Our Evenings “will be leading the pack”.

Keiran Goddard – critic and author of, most recently, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning – has his fingers crossed for The City Changes Its Face by Eimear McBride, as well as for Flesh and Audition.

Asked for her predictions, Silcox said that she was “going to advocate hard and passionately for Aussie fiction”, which was ignored “scandalously” and “stupidly” by the prize for a decade until Charlotte Wood was shortlisted last year for Stone Yard Devotional. “And oh did she deserve to be there!”

Silcox would like to see Rapture by Emily Maguire (also one of Wyld’s picks below), Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko, Dusk by Robbie Arnott or De Kretser’s Theory & Practice on the list. “Aussie writing is alive, brilliant and form elastic, and so much more than tales of dead girls in the outback.”

What else can we expect? “Historically, of course, the longlist has also been a wonderful showcase for debut novelists,” says Donkor. “In this vein, it would be fantastic to see Issa Quincy’s Absence and Anthony Shapland’s A Room Above a Shop getting a nod.” Cummins added To Rest Our Minds and Bodies by Harriet Armstrong and Endling by Maria Reva into the mix of possible debuts.

And which publishers might break through? Fitzcarraldo Editions, “renowned for translated fiction, have never been nominated for the Booker despite publishing outstanding English-language novels,” says Cummins. “Maybe Jonathan Buckley’s One Boat will change that.”

Ultimately, “prize lists are mysterious things”, says Goddard; curveballs are to be expected. It’s in the hands of Sarah Jessica Parker and this year’s other judges: Roddy Doyle, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Chris Power and Kiley Reid. All is revealed on Tuesday. Let’s hope these critics approve.

[ANC]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "There were 159 books that got votes - just listed top ones here."

Ooh I see. Now i'm curious what are the rare ones that didn't make into the list.

[Jo]

So just for fun... my ideal list:

1. What We can Know - Ian McEwan
2. Red Clay - Charles B. Fancher
3. The Artist - Lucy Steeds
4. Audition - Katie Kitamura
5. Seascraper - Benjamin Wood
6. The Life Cycle of a Moth - Irwin Rowe
7. Nesting - Roisin O'Donnell
8. Show Me Where it Hurts - Claire Gleeson
9. Broken Country - Claire Leslie Hall
10. Culpability - Bruce Holsinger
11. Doll Parts - Penny Zang
12. Necessary Fiction - Eloghosa Osunde
13. The Names - Florence Knapp

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Where are you seeing those Times and Guardian posts Cindy.

[Lili]

I see those predictions in the Guardian’s “Bookmarks” newsletter that I received by email. But I am not seeing the same content posted on their site.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Full votes on my prediction poll

5-9 Votes: Nova Scotia House, Stag Dance, The Antidote, Disappoint Me, Love Forms, Ordinary Saints, The Language of Remembering, The South, Tonyinterruptor, A New New Me, Cloudless, Death of the Author, The Accidental Immigrants, The Boy From The Sea, Beautyland, The Pretender, Madame Sokratis and the Festival for the Broken Hearted, Necessary Fiction, Quarterlife, To Rest Our Minds and Bodies, Good Girl, Confessions, Parallel Lines, Life Cycle of a Moth, Misinterpretation, The Hounding, The Mobius Book, The Tigers Share
 
2-4 Votes: Among Friends, People Like Us, Spent, Happiness and Love, Pick A Colour, The Lamb, A Family Matter, Aerth, Black Woods Blue Sky, Gloss, Good Dirt, Rapture, Sunbirth, The Homemade God, The Other Wife, The Sisters, The Two Roberts, Tilt, We Hexed The Moon, The Expansion Project, Buckeye, A House for Miss Pauline, Air, Another Man In The Street, Dream State, Great Black Hope, Gunk, Kataraina, Mere, Moderation, Monaghan, Our Beautiful Boys, Sister Europe, Sunstruck, The Catch, The Dissenters, The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth, This Immaculate Body, This Kind of Trouble, Eden's Shore, Fun and Games, I Want To Go Home But I'm Already There
 
1 Vote: A Beautiful Family, A Splintering, Absence, Amity, And Notre Dame Is Burning, Atmosphere, Beautiful Atlantic Waltz, Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil, Catalina, Deviants, Elegy Southwest, Frogs for Watchdogs, Human, Animal, I Want To Talk To You, Land of Hope, Landscapes, Lion, Luminous, Model Home, Playworld, Poor Ghost, Room On The Sea, Rooms for Vanishing, Salutation Road, Shamiso, Shibboleth, Sleep, Sugartown, The Boyhood of Cain, The Boys, The Devil Three Times, The Drowned, The Mires, The Original Daughter, The Party, The Passenger Seat, The Phoenix Pencil Company, The Proof of My Innocence, The Scrapbook, The Volcano Daughter, Venetian Vespers, What You Make of Me, Wood Working

[Joy D]

Thank you for your efforts in compiling these lists, GY! I have read 25 of the originally listed 49 and look forward to checking out the rest.

[Cindy]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Where are you seeing those Times and Guardian posts Cindy."

As Lili noted, the Guardian predictions were in its weekly "Bookmarks" newsletter that I wake up to on Sunday mornings. Similarly, The Times predictions came in its weekly Books newsletter which arrives on Friday afternoons.

[James]

Per a comment on Instagram, the announcement is coming at 2pm BST on Tuesday.

[Hugh, Active moderator]

Just starting to create a few topics in case I get Captchad when the list is announced tomorrow - please ignore them for now.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

You setting up the threads ready for a major prize longlist always ratchets up the anticipation.

[ANC]

Wow... thanks GY.. that's a lot of books I've not heard of or seen in the Listopia. I wonder if any of them will be the surprises tomorrow.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I have not tried to work out the overlap ie what’s here but not the Listopia or vice versa. I do not intend to either. If the Listopia could be downloaded to excel easily I would do that next year - but I do not see a way to do that.

[Cindy]

ANC wrote: "Wow... thanks GY.. that's a lot of books I've not heard of or seen in the Listopia. I wonder if any of them will be the surprises tomorrow."

I have been wondering about surprises a lot. The more prediction or wish lists I saw (or that GY shared), the more the same titles seemed to be coming up. If memory serves, that's never how it actually is when the longlist is revealed.

[Derek]

My predictions:

Nova Scotia House
Our Evenings
Flesh
Absence
Shamiso
The Artist
Good Dirt
Let Me go Mad in my Own Way
Nesting
The Boys
Audition
Probably the new McEwan

[James]

I remember 2017 being a year where a lot of the big names being tipped before the announcement ended up making it. The lack of surprises was a bit of a let down for me.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

2017 and 2019 most predictable - 2018 the least with some books I do not think any other judge would have picked followed by 2020 with a lot of debuts. I still think the way the Booker sets up it should be pretty predictable.

Actually even the prediction lists are quite varied - there looks like and there is a clear top 13 but across the 100+ predictions the average overlap with that list was less than 5. And there were 160 books. I think though most people “fish” for say 10 of their list in the top 50 or so of the Listopia not least as often when people go too off piste they pick ineligible books.

[Abby]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Full votes on my prediction poll

5-9 Votes: Nova Scotia House, Stag Dance, The Antidote, Disappoint Me, Love Forms, Ordinary Saints, The Language of Remembering, The South, Tonyinterruptor, A New ..."

I figured out that "Absence, Amity, And Notre Dame Is Burning" includes three books but I am stymied by "Human, Animal, I want to talk to you."

[BookerMT2]

I've not read as many possible contenders as usual this year but of those I have I'd be happy to see the following on the list.
Open Heaven (just beautifully written)
Flesh
Book of Records
Helm
The Dream Hotel
Ripeness

I'd be fine with Nesting on it too though I didn't love like others have.

I read the Colwill Brown a couple of weeks ago now and have been considering it over time. I have to say I'm pretty underwhelmed by it. Feel like I've been in this sort of fiction before with the likes of James Kelman but he's just so much better a writer. It just seemed quite repetitive at times and the ending was so obvious that it came as no surprise at all. I can see why people like it but I'd not be upset if it didn't make it.

A couple of outsiders I enjoyed publishing in September are,
Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
and
Pick A Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa

Loved the latter which is quirky and relevant as well as very well written.
Both would need to be call ins I'd guess.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Human, Animal is by Seth Insua and was predicted by Bob The Bookerer in the first prediction I found but has not appeared in the 100 since.

I Want To Talk To You was predicted using Chat GPT by the Readers Room blog and like at least one other on that list is in my view ineligible. But I included it just in case AI knows more about Booker eliginility rules than me (some people have called that the Booker Singularity)

[Owen]

Back in my day we'd be getting leaks at this point

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Big leaks clampdown this year though - the authors and publishers are not even meant to know. So any leak is more likely to be an error

[Ruben]

In previous years the judges would have also acted as 'blurbers'...perhaps this was discussed already, but any blurbs by this year's judges for candidate novels?

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Yes

Roddy Doyle - Nesting (thats why it’s leading the predictions) and Ghost Park (actually although in the blurb it’s for an earlier book).

Kiley Reid - The Tiny Things Are Heavier is one example but there are more I think.

[Ruben]

Had not heard of the Okonkwo, but it sounds really good (better than that other Nigerian novel...), thanks!

[Cindy]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Yes

Roddy Doyle - Nesting (thats why it’s leading the predictions) and Ghost Park (actually although in the blurb it’s for an earlier book).

Kiley Reid - The Tiny Things Are Heavier is one examp..."

GY, do you mean Ghost Wedding by David Park?

[Ben]

Reid has also blurbed The Other Wife, and Bring the House Down.

Interesting that the anti-leak measures seem to have paid off! The last couple of years we knew a few by now.

[Carl]

I just finished TonyInterruptor and found it very Bookerish. Not a fave. I wonder if Granta will put her forward. Has anyone read it? And if so, what did you think about it?

[Ben]

It will almost certainly have been read by the judges, as Barker is a former shortlistee and Granta get a free pass to submit it.

Haven’t read it, but looking forward to it!

[Carl]

Ben wrote: "It will almost certainly have been read by the judges, as Barker is a former shortlistee and Granta get a free pass to submit it.

Haven’t read it, but looking forward to it!"

My thoughts, Ben. Last time she was long listed was 2012, and from Granta, I think her's is the most prominent publication. Oh well, not much longer left for us to know :p

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Yes I did mean Ghost Wedding - someone wise made that mistake in almost the last prediction to make my list and it’s now stuck in my head!!!

I feel like the Barker is a lot more Goldsmithy - I enjoyed it but it will get a lot of baffled reviews if listed.

[Carl]

And you say this, GY, because the writing is more experimental and less accessible compared to traditional booker nominations. I can see this now. Thanks!

[BookerMT2]

Ben wrote: "Reid has also blurbed The Other Wife, and Bring the House Down.

Interesting that the anti-leak measures seem to have paid off! The last couple of years we knew a few by now."

Cindy wrote: "Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Yes

Roddy Doyle - Nesting (thats why it’s leading the predictions) and Ghost Park (actually although in the blurb it’s for an earlier book).

Kiley Reid - ..."

In the past publishers were informed re shortlisting and longlisting around a 5 days in advance, mainly to allow them to ensure stock would be available or on its way if reprints were required. I guess authors were also told.
This year they are not supposed to be told in advance which personally I'm in favour of if people can't keep quiet.

[Henk]

To be fair, I love a cheeky leak and one of ours finding somewhere on Waterstones or Blackwells a mention of the longlisting ;-)

[Ruben]

I now hear that Praiseworthy is AGAIN not longlisted! #scandalous

[Hugh, Active moderator]

Maybe we should take part of the blame for the lack of leaks this year...

[Paula]

Happy Booker day, everyone!

Haven't managed to stumble upon any accidental leaks like it was with the International Booker. (And regarding the lack of leaks, I only blame that one guy who couldn't keep quiet and had to make a whole damn youtube video about it!)

Also, I just noticed one book that isn't on listopia but is technically eligible because it was published on October 1st - Fire Exit by Morgan Talty!

[Carl]

Ruben wrote: "I now hear that Praiseworthy is AGAIN not longlisted! #scandalous"

I just purchased it (and couldn't help but think of Paul). I shall too be one to protest its forgetfulness by the prizes, once I read it.

[Mohamed]

Paula wrote: "Happy Booker day, everyone!

Haven't managed to stumble upon any accidental leaks like it was with the International Booker. (And regarding the lack of leaks, I only blame that one guy who couldn't..."

I agree with you. That video was a bad move from an attention seeker.

[Mohamed]

There's a title from Orwell prize on the longlist

[Cindy]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Yes I did mean Ghost Wedding - someone wise made that mistake in almost the last prediction to make my list and it’s now stuck in my head!!!

I feel like the Barker is a lot more Goldsmithy - I enj..."

I have been wondering if We Pretty Pieces of Flesh might have the same issue of being more Goldsmithy than Bookerish.

[Paula]

Mohamed wrote: "There's a title from Orwell prize on the longlist"

Ooooh, how do you know that?