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Booker Prize 2025 | Long List Reaction · Bookies' Favourite

• 0:10
  Hi, welcome back everyone to Bookies favorite book club.
• 0:14
  I'm Hannah and I'm here with Aaron today and we're going to
• 0:18
  talk you through this year's Booker Prize long list.
• 0:21
  Unfortunately Lucy and Colin were a bit busy today, so I mean
• 0:26
  I think it's going to be the best 2 who are going to
• 0:28
  introduce the long list this year.
• 0:30
  What do you think, Aaron? Yeah, well, I, I wouldn't be
• 0:33
  surprised if Lucy is a comatose due to the shock that there's no
• 0:40
  Irish authors on this long list. All of her chips that she's put
• 0:45
  down on, on the Irish literature, she's completely
• 0:49
  lost. So the bookies, the bookies are
• 0:52
  not too good at actually predicting what's what's going
• 0:55
  to come up. No, I don't think so.
• 1:00
  So the Booker Prize 2025 was released yesterday and shocker,
• 1:04
  like Aaron said, we predicted what did we do 1.
• 1:07
  We only predicted one book that ended up on the on the actual
• 1:12
  long list, and that book is Universality.
• 1:18
  And we also mentioned Endling, which Lucy had also read.
• 1:24
  So we had a little bit of a discussion about those two
• 1:28
  books, but we're just going to run through quickly.
• 1:30
  Describe what books are on the list and see if we want them to
• 1:37
  actually be on the shortlist. We're not planning on reading
• 1:40
  the long lists as part of this podcast.
• 1:43
  Lucy's aiming to read as many as she can in her own time.
• 1:48
  But the shortlist will be announced in September and we
• 1:53
  will be reading all of the books in the shortlist before the
• 1:56
  winner's announced. So this list is going to be
• 1:59
  topped in in more than half. So since neither of us have read
• 2:02
  any of these books, we're just going to take a bit of the
• 2:07
  description from the Booker Prize website for each of these
• 2:10
  books and run with that. So.
• 2:13
  First up on the long list, this year we've got Misinterpretation
• 2:17
  by Lida Joga and this is published by Don't Book
• 2:22
  Originals. This novel is set in present day
• 2:25
  New York City where an Albanian interpreter reluctantly agrees
• 2:29
  to work with a torture survivor during his therapy sessions.
• 2:33
  Our leading lady gets wrapped up in all of this.
• 2:36
  I have to say, this one I'm quite interested in.
• 2:39
  You know, I like a little bit of dark, the dark side.
• 2:42
  So I think this will be one that I might pick up even if it's not
• 2:47
  on the list or might read before.
• 2:49
  I don't know. What do you think?
• 2:51
  Yeah, I don't know, It's, it's not something I'm super excited
• 2:54
  for, but if it's on the shortlist, I'm, I'm down to read
• 2:58
  it. I'm not completely turned off by
• 3:00
  it. On to book #2 And that is
• 3:02
  Seascraper by Benjamin Woods and that is published by Viking.
• 3:09
  This book is about a boy that is trapped in a life that's
• 3:16
  dictated by his class and then he has the hopes and dreams of
• 3:22
  Hollywood that come for him. But is the American dream really
• 3:27
  what it seems? Who?
• 3:30
  Who shall know? Not us because we haven't read
• 3:32
  it. This one actually sounds really
• 3:35
  interesting to me and whenever we were doing our prediction
• 3:37
  episode, I was interested in this, especially by the title.
• 3:41
  I like the title C Scraper as opposed to Skyscraper, so I'm
• 3:47
  interested in this one. What about you, Hannah?
• 3:49
  I don't know. These are the ones that bet you
• 3:52
  that I'm like, meh, but it's going to make the short list and
• 3:55
  then I'm going to fall in love with it.
• 3:56
  So I'm kind of going to keep an open mind this time and I'm
• 4:02
  excited to see what does actually make the list.
• 4:04
  But this one, I'm on the fence so far.
• 4:06
  The next book on our list is Flesh by David Zalay.
• 4:10
  This book is published by Jonathan Cape.
• 4:12
  This story follows the character.
• 4:15
  He lives with his mother in a quiet complex and hungry, and
• 4:19
  his only companion is a older neighbor who's around the same
• 4:26
  age as his mother. And this book kind of follows
• 4:28
  him throughout time and from his move from the army to a company
• 4:36
  in London. And I think the Booker Pro sums
• 4:40
  it up pretty well. It says Flesh asks her fine
• 4:43
  questions about what drives a life, what makes it worth
• 4:45
  living, and what breaks it. I'm actually quite interested in
• 4:49
  this one. I like those books that ask
• 4:51
  bigger questions and kind of follows a character and their
• 4:56
  development, which I hope is what this book is doing.
• 4:59
  But what do you think? Karen, honestly, I'm a little
• 5:03
  concerned about the age gap in this one since it's a 15 year
• 5:07
  old boy with a woman the same age as his mother, but I guess
• 5:12
  we shall see how it pans out. On to book #4 which is Endling.
• 5:17
  Now. This one Lucy has read and we
• 5:21
  discussed it really quick in the previous episode.
• 5:24
  So this book is based in Ukraine at the brink of the Russia
• 5:30
  Ukraine war in 2022. It revolves around a woman who
• 5:38
  is very interested in a rare endangered snail and the lengths
• 5:43
  she will go to raise money. And it seems like it's a bit of
• 5:50
  a feminist book as well. So, you know, I'm curious.
• 5:54
  I wasn't really sold on it before, but I'm maybe a little
• 5:58
  bit more interested now the more that I think about it.
• 6:02
  What about you? Oh, 100% sold on this book.
• 6:04
  We'll read it even if it's not in the shortlist.
• 6:07
  I love a weird, weird book that features like something very
• 6:11
  specific like that book I love about the printer and the one
• 6:16
  that one where the woman loves her printer and the other one
• 6:19
  that like kind of magical realism type 1 shoe act that
• 6:23
  I've read before. I love a weird quirky book.
• 6:27
  Do I like snails? No I I'm I'm repulsed by them.
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  But will I read this book? 100% yes.
• 6:33
  And Enling is written by Ukrainian author Maria Riva and
• 6:37
  published by Virago. Next on the list is The Land in
• 6:41
  Winter by Andrew Miller and it's published by Scepter.
• 6:46
  So this novel follows 2 couples who find their lives that are
• 6:49
  unravelling in the midst of a violent Blizzard that's
• 6:52
  occurring. And the Booker Prize again is
• 6:56
  really good saying so where do you go when you can't leave
• 6:58
  home? And where in a frozen world can
• 7:00
  you run to? And this, I'm quite tempted to
• 7:04
  read this one as well. It was recently nominated for a
• 7:07
  Walter Scott Prize. And I like the idea of this
• 7:11
  novel being set, you know, that kind of one day.
• 7:14
  I don't know if it's just one particular day or throughout
• 7:16
  December, but I like this idea of I'm just focusing in on these
• 7:21
  two couples and kind of seeing the differences in their lives.
• 7:24
  So what do you think, Aaron? Yeah, you know, this one was on
• 7:27
  my radar before when it was nominated for the Walter Scott
• 7:31
  Prize and it was shortlisted. And I, I'm interested in it.
• 7:36
  Not 100% of my kind of book, I don't think, but I'm, I'm
• 7:40
  definitely up for this one. Then on to our next one, which
• 7:45
  is The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovitz, and this is published
• 7:50
  by Faber. This one seems to be basically a
• 7:53
  book about midlife crisis. A man who's dropped his daughter
• 7:57
  off for college kind of tries to reinvent his life.
• 8:02
  I don't know if I'm 100% on board for this one.
• 8:05
  It sounds very boring to me. I don't really care about
• 8:09
  father's midlife crisis after he's dropped his daughter off to
• 8:13
  to university. But what about you, Hannah?
• 8:17
  Is this your kind of book? I don't think this is my type of
• 8:20
  book at all. And also I don't want to know
• 8:23
  what a father's crisis is after dropping, like, their daughter
• 8:26
  off to university because then it'll make me think about how my
• 8:29
  dad felt when, well, they didn't really leave me off at
• 8:32
  university since I went to university in the same city I
• 8:35
  live. But I don't know.
• 8:38
  But it makes me too emotional. Yeah.
• 8:40
  I mean, like, I love a good sad girl book, but I don't know if
• 8:43
  I'd like a good sad boy book, you know?
• 8:46
  Am I sexist? Maybe.
• 8:47
  But I don't. I don't.
• 8:49
  I don't know how to feel about this one.
• 8:51
  It's on my. I'd be fine if it wasn't on the
• 8:54
  list the shortlist. Oh, I hope it's not on the list
• 8:57
  at all. OK, the next book we've got is
• 8:59
  auditioned by Kitty Kidamara. This book features two people
• 9:02
  who meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant, an
• 9:04
  accomplished actress and a troubling young man.
• 9:11
  It's rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day
• 9:14
  and questions whether we ever really know the people we love.
• 9:19
  I don't know if it's really selling it to me in this.
• 9:21
  Narrative. You know, I am actually really
• 9:23
  interested in this one. Yeah, I'm.
• 9:26
  Surprised. I think it's a little bit
• 9:28
  different. The fact that it kind of takes
• 9:32
  place in the Broadway theater scene.
• 9:37
  It just sounds like something different and I'm totally on
• 9:40
  board for that. Do you think there it sounds
• 9:42
  like there could be like a complete twist in it because
• 9:45
  given the line, you know, do you really know the people we love?
• 9:48
  I feel like there's going to be some like secret revealed.
• 9:51
  I don't know, maybe am I changing my own mind about this?
• 9:55
  I'm going to put it on the maybe pile for me.
• 9:57
  On to our next book, which is The Loneliness of Sonia and
• 10:02
  Sunny. This is written by Kyron Desai,
• 10:07
  sorry if I have your name wrong. And that is published by Hamish
• 10:11
  Hamilton. Hamish Hamilton?
• 10:13
  Who knows? Not me.
• 10:16
  So this is a love story that follows 2 characters from India.
• 10:24
  They have basically a long history of their grandparents
• 10:31
  trying to set them up together. And then they spot each other
• 10:34
  and they feel the spark. And she's been studying in
• 10:39
  Vermont. He's a journalist in New York.
• 10:42
  It just seems like a love story that includes culture, location,
• 10:49
  time. I'm actually completely on board
• 10:51
  for this. I can see the passion in his
• 10:53
  eyes right now. Everyone is.
• 10:54
  He's like selling it to me, you know?
• 10:58
  It just sounds really interesting to me.
• 11:00
  I'm not really a love story kind of guy, but there's just
• 11:04
  something about this that is it seems a bit different and I I
• 11:09
  would actually really like for this to be on the shortlist.
• 11:12
  I don't think I'm a big romance novel girlie, so it's not a
• 11:19
  maybe for me. I feel like all of these are
• 11:21
  maybe because I haven't really like I suppose.
• 11:25
  I guess I have to read them before I make my decision, but
• 11:28
  this one's maybe just because I'm like, I like something a bit
• 11:31
  different other than romance. But I imagine that it's going to
• 11:34
  give more than that, obviously because it's on the Booker list.
• 11:38
  But to be decided on this one. Next on our list is Flashlight
• 11:42
  by Susan Choi and this one is published by Jonathan Cape.
• 11:47
  This novel follows the main character, 10 year old Louisa,
• 11:51
  and her father, who take a walk on the beach.
• 11:54
  When Louisa wakes up hours later, her father is gone.
• 11:58
  She's washed up on the beach and this disappearance of her father
• 12:03
  kind of shatters the whole family unit.
• 12:05
  Louisa and her mother have to return back to the US and it's a
• 12:08
  mystery on what really happened to her father, and I believe the
• 12:12
  novel kind of tries to unravel that.
• 12:15
  I'm so excited to read this one. I love one where there's like a
• 12:19
  bit of mystery in it. I don't know if anyone ever read
• 12:24
  I think it's Kansukis or Wait, I think it's Kansukis Kingdom by
• 12:30
  Michael Murpergo. It is like a children's novel,
• 12:33
  but I, my teacher read it is at school and it talked about like
• 12:37
  a man washing up on an island and his kind of life.
• 12:40
  And the start of this new description of this book has me
• 12:44
  reminded of that. So I'm kind of excited to see if
• 12:47
  we find out whether, you know, we find out the father.
• 12:50
  Is he washed up somewhere? You know, is he on another
• 12:53
  island or is he just actually dead?
• 12:55
  That would be so depressing if he was just dead.
• 12:58
  But I'm excited to see this. And then the other idea of
• 13:02
  looking at it like tackling, you know, this family, you're not
• 13:05
  having to move back to America without their father.
• 13:08
  So definitely want to read this one.
• 13:11
  What about you, Aaron? Yeah, this one does interest me
• 13:14
  as well. Again, I had heard of this book
• 13:17
  previously and the kind of mystery element to it definitely
• 13:22
  has been intrigued. Onto 1 Boat which is by Jonathan
• 13:26
  Buckley and this is a Fitzcarrado book.
• 13:29
  This one is about a woman who has returned to a Greek town
• 13:36
  along the coast. It seems to be the place that
• 13:39
  she goes after her parents have died, since her father has just
• 13:42
  died and previously she went here after her mother's death.
• 13:47
  She reconnects with the people who she had met last time she
• 13:51
  was on the island and it seems like a glimpse into their lives.
• 13:55
  And it seems to also be dealing with the themes of grief.
• 14:00
  It's something I'm interested in.
• 14:02
  It's kind of given me vibes of the books that Lucy had been
• 14:07
  reading and hoping for, but instead of somebody returning to
• 14:12
  or going to Ireland to get their life together, this is about a
• 14:16
  woman who's gone to Greece to get her life together after
• 14:20
  traumatic, sad events. So it actually seems sounds
• 14:24
  interesting to me. I love the fact that we might
• 14:28
  get to glimpse into the lives of just the locals who are living
• 14:32
  in this small town. I'm so skeptical of a
• 14:35
  Fitzcarraldo, you know, and like, I just don't want to be
• 14:39
  bitten again, but every time I'm so apprehensive when one comes
• 14:42
  up. But, you know, I might give this
• 14:45
  one a try. I like the idea of exploring
• 14:48
  kind of another country through a book because I'm not so sad on
• 14:53
  the time. I'm always reading about home.
• 14:55
  So maybe this lady wants to live her Mama and me a moment, you
• 14:58
  know, in Greece. So this is on my maybe pie.
• 15:03
  Next up on our list we've got Universality by Natasha Brine
• 15:07
  and this one is published by Fabia.
• 15:10
  This book sent England and follows an attack one night on a
• 15:14
  Yorkshire farm where a man is brutally bludgeoned with a solid
• 15:18
  gold bar and a young journalist sets out to expose what has
• 15:22
  happened. She solves the mystery, but she
• 15:26
  her expose raises more questions than answers.
• 15:30
  I'm sold, I'm sold. I love it.
• 15:33
  I love a mystery I can't wait to see.
• 15:35
  I also love like I know that Lucy is mentioned in the last
• 15:39
  podcast, but the idea of just talking about class divide, you
• 15:43
  got mystery, you got undercovering, you know, corrupt
• 15:47
  systems. Love, love, love.
• 15:49
  Cannot wait to read. It's on my it's on my list of
• 15:52
  ones I want in the shortlist. What do you think?
• 15:55
  Well. This this was the one and only
• 15:57
  book that made it from our prediction list and she seemed
• 16:00
  really interested in it. She was trying to sell me on it.
• 16:04
  I am based on the fact that it was about a journalist.
• 16:08
  I had pointed out to her that there were multiple books and
• 16:10
  that were eligible about journalists and not all of them
• 16:14
  sounded interesting. This one maybe is more
• 16:19
  interesting than what I had initially thought, but I don't
• 16:23
  know. Class divides.
• 16:25
  I don't know if that's really my kind of territory, but everyone
• 16:30
  else seems to be excited for it. So, you know, maybe I'll just be
• 16:34
  the the one who's who's not a fan.
• 16:37
  I think my love for politics and all that like follows into my
• 16:42
  love for books like this. So excited to read and I'm
• 16:45
  already hoping. I haven't read a single page,
• 16:47
  but I'm already hoping it's on the shortlist.
• 16:49
  On to our second last book of the long list, This is the South
• 16:54
  by Tash Aw, published by 4th Estate.
• 16:57
  This book follows a boy called Jay who travels to his
• 17:03
  grandfather's farm which is in a state of disrepair following his
• 17:07
  death. He has to work the land and he
• 17:10
  develops a strong intimate connection with the son of the
• 17:15
  farms manager. This one interests me a lot.
• 17:21
  I like the themes of working on the farm and developing intimate
• 17:27
  relationship. I don't know what exactly that
• 17:30
  means and how intimate it gets and but this one does seem
• 17:36
  interesting to me. What about you?
• 17:37
  This is all I can know for me. I'm not a farm person.
• 17:44
  I mean, I can, I feel like they could be quite nice things about
• 17:48
  like connecting with each other and like working together to put
• 17:53
  together the farm again. But I don't know, it's not
• 17:57
  selling me like a snail book, you know, this one's a no for
• 18:03
  me. The last book on the long list
• 18:05
  is Love Forms by Claire Adam and this one is published by Fabia
• 18:10
  as well. This novel starts in Trinidad
• 18:12
  where our main character, Don Bishop leaves her home and
• 18:15
  travels to Venezuela at age 16. She then has a baby girl and
• 18:20
  leaves her up for adoption. 40 years later, she's contacted
• 18:25
  through an Internet forum where someone claims to be her long
• 18:28
  lost daughter. I don't know.
• 18:30
  OK, so mixed feelings about this because, yeah, we've had books
• 18:34
  before, like Small Things like This by, I believe, Claire
• 18:37
  Keegan. And it kind of talks about that
• 18:40
  idea of like babies left up for adoption in Ireland and touches
• 18:44
  on like, the laundries and that. So I'm not sure if I want to
• 18:49
  explore that possibility of something happening to that, you
• 18:53
  know, to someone in another country.
• 18:57
  It's a tough one. I think it could be like a
• 18:59
  really good read, but there's certain topics I suppose that I
• 19:03
  don't really want to face at the moment.
• 19:06
  I don't know, maybe a bucket that's quite in the news and
• 19:08
  that again. But it does sound really
• 19:11
  interesting, so I'll think about it.
• 19:14
  Yeah, this one does sound like it could very easily be an Irish
• 19:19
  story and based off Ireland's history with the Magdalene
• 19:23
  Laundries and and other similar institutions that were set up by
• 19:27
  the church. This actually does sound
• 19:30
  interesting to me because it might be interesting to see how
• 19:35
  other people from other parts of the world are also impacted by
• 19:40
  by similar situations, especially something done
• 19:44
  through the church. The fact that from this blurb we
• 19:50
  don't really get a sense as to whether or not the the woman
• 19:55
  truly is her daughter has a little bit of a mystery in for
• 19:58
  me and I I think that the mystery has dragged me in.
• 20:04
  I am actually really interested in the thought of this one.
• 20:07
  Oh, yeah, I'm always surprised. I don't know why, when people
• 20:11
  are like, oh, I'm interested in this one.
• 20:12
  I'm like, oh, why? Well, guys, that summarizes the
• 20:18
  13 books that are currently on the Booker Prize 2025 long list.
• 20:23
  I'm going to say my top three so far, because we all know from
• 20:27
  this episode I'm Indecisive, is Antling, Flashlight and
• 20:31
  Universality. Do you have any tops so far,
• 20:34
  Aaron, that you're looking forward to seeing in the
• 20:36
  shortlist? I do have to be honest, none of
• 20:39
  these sound extremely interesting to me.
• 20:42
  Some of them sound good and I'm willing to give them a go, but I
• 20:48
  don't think any of these are my type of book.
• 20:53
  This sounds like you're already setting it up that you're not
• 20:55
  going to finish any of them aren't.
• 20:57
  No, I'll definitely, I'll finish whatever's on the shortlist and
• 21:00
  but if I had to pick three that I hope to be on the shortlist,
• 21:06
  I'm going to go with Audition, The Loneliness of Sonia and
• 21:12
  Sonny, and 1:00 Boat. Yeah, OK, interesting picks.
• 21:20
  Yeah, Yeah. Well, like we said, we are not
• 21:24
  going to be reading the long list.
• 21:26
  Lucy is going to try and knock out as many as she can before
• 21:30
  the shortlist is announced in September.
• 21:33
  We will be updating you in September when the shortlist is
• 21:36
  revealed and that will be where we will be jumping in and
• 21:39
  reading the six that that we have until the winner's
• 21:43
  announced. Yep.
• 21:45
  So we'll be doing our six books in the six weeks again, which
• 21:48
  I'm excited to take on another challenge this year.
• 21:52
  It's really getting me back into rating.
• 21:53
  But if any of you are excited about the long list, have you
• 21:57
  got any favourites so far? What are you hoping for that'll
• 22:00
  be on the short list? Please get involved with us.
• 22:03
  We've loved all the interaction and when we were covering the
• 22:07
  international record. It's so great to get feedback
• 22:10
  here, everyone's voices. So please get in touch with us.
• 22:13
  We have our Instagram page which is bookies favorite book club.
• 22:18
  You can also get in touch with us via e-mail.
• 22:21
  Aaron, take it away. That's bookies favorite
• 22:23
  bookclub@gmail.com and there's AU in favorite the books that
• 22:28
  we're planning on covering between now and the shortlist.
• 22:33
  Next week. We have an episode of glorious
• 22:35
  exploits coming to you. Then that will be followed up
• 22:40
  with a mini series of reading a long chapter by chapter to Eden
• 22:47
  Shore. If you're interested in doing
• 22:50
  that, please join Lucy and I. We think it's a really
• 22:54
  fascinating book and we might have confirmed an interview with
• 23:00
  the author, Ashin Vagan. So definitely if you've got any
• 23:04
  questions while you're reading, send them through to us.
• 23:08
  And just before the shortlist is announced, we will also be
• 23:12
  reading Confessions by Catherine Erie, and that is the winner of
• 23:17
  one of our previous polls with which you all voted in.
• 23:22
  So you can start reading that chunk of a book as well.
• 23:25
  Thanks. So much guys for listening
• 23:26
  along. We are really excited about
• 23:28
  taking on another challenge and put our own boogie spin on
• 23:32
  everything as we usually do. So yeah, like I said again, feel
• 23:35
  free to get in touch and boogies out.
• 23:38
  Bye.