The End of Everything (2026)
The End of Everything is set in a near-future Britain in which some disaster, or combination of disasters, seems to have occurred, and yet its inhabitants continue to attempt to maintain some semblance of their old routines and rituals. Infrastructure has mostly collapsed, the political landscape is dysfunctional, Europe appears to be ‘missing’ and Britain is shadowed by a vaguely understood but seemingly ongoing crisis associated with an enigmatic, ostensibly “alien” presence referred to as the "iGhetti." The primary narrative follows Phillip Tennent, a man living on the Kent coast who makes his living as a beachcomber, searching the shoreline for washed-up objects of potential value. Early in the book, Phillip discovers an unusual ‘artefact’, which while compared to organic matter and possessing infant-like qualities, it is generally ill-defined other than by its potential sale value, and Phillip initially focuses on trying to find a buyer for the ‘object’.
Black Bag (2026)
Black Bag follows an unnamed struggling actor whose career highlights to date have largely involved performing mid-meal mystery theatre to crowds of indifferent rich folks. He accepts a bizarre performance-based job posted by a university professor named Dr. Blend. Modeled on a real-life 1967 social experiment, the job requires him to zip himself inside a large black leather bag, and sit in silence at the back of a lecture theatre during Blend’s psychology classes. He is strictly forbidden from speaking or interacting with the students, serving merely as an anonymous object for the class to react to. As the experiment progresses, the protagonist finds comfort in the anonymity of the bag, eventually choosing to wear it outside of his required hours and adapting to its practical challenges and potential for social alienation. His fellow students, as proposed by the original experiment’s premise, after going through a phase of resenting his presence, ultimately come to respect and even like ‘Black Bag’.
The Renovation (2026)
The Renovation follows Dilara, a Turkish woman living in self-imposed political exile in a quiet coastal village in Salerno, Italy. Unable to find employment in her field, she has dedicated herself to the care of her aging father, who is suffering from advanced dementia, and at the start of the book is in the process of installing a second bathroom in her apartment to accommodate his needs. After weeks of secretive construction hidden behind tarpaulins, the contractors pack up and leave. Instead of the modern en-suite bathroom Dilara was expecting to return home to, she finds instead a fully functioning, replica Turkish prison cell.
John of John (2026)
John of John focuses on John-Calum (“Cal”) McLeod, a recently graduated textiles student living in Edinburgh. He’s called back to his home in a remote Hebridean croft by his devout Presbyterian preacher father John, under the guise of helping look after his ailing maternal grandmother, Ella, who has lived with the pair since Cal’s mother left. Cal is gay, but very much not openly so, and his outsider status and ‘mainlander’ style and manner immediately cause conflict with his father. As the book progresses, we learn that Cal isn’t the only one in the family with secrets. (Spoilers ahead!)
The Disappearers (2026)
The Disappearers takes as its starting point a 1988 clandestine theatre group, a rather disparate selection of local gay men who answered the coded call to audition for a production of Canadian playwright John Herbert's prison-set drama, Fortune and Men's Eyes, directed by the veteran Cambridge-educated Havelock Titus. Its first section is narrated by the white-passing Belgian-Jamaican youth Eddy Porteous, who has (compared at least to his peers) a relatively straightforward home life, and sits kind of on the periphery of the group, some of whom have prior connections and are at least generally more immersed in the real-world realities of living as a gay man in Jamaica. He develops a fascination with the beautiful half-Chinese Mat Chin, and begins to notice the difficulties experienced by another fellow actor, Jordan Brown. By a quirk of fate, Porteous misses the rehearsal on the night when it is overrun by a bloodthirsty homophobic mob, inspired by (and ring-led by) the local dancehall artist Streggeh Don, whose hate-filled hit ‘Batty is not Pussy’ has become something of an anthem for many of the worst elements of Jamaican society.
Switzy (2026)
Switzy focuses on the final journey of David, a retired high-flying business executive. Suffering from dementia and dependent on the help of his young assistant Cody, he has made one final decision which will take him to a clinic in Zurich, Switzerland. Along the way, via flights on a borrowed private jet, he will visit his estranged daughter and her nine-year-old son in London, and meet an old friend in France near the Swiss border. His mind deteriorating, he reflects on his life in fragments (repeated phrases from childhood books, films and lessons pepper his present-day thoughts) and distracts his mind with repeated games of solitaire on his phone.
All That Man Is (2016)
All That Man Is comprises eleven short stories, each told from the perspective of a different man. The stories cover men of different ages, loosely in ascending order, beginning with a student and ending with an octogenarian nearing the end of life. Its eligibility for the Booker depended on it being considered a novel, which is something of a stretch. While there is one direct connection made between characters in different stories, and several others implied, the connection between the tales is more thematic than anything else, so in many senses not unusual for a short story collection., Which, let’s be honest, this is. Where Flesh took as its focus the full life of one man, this book instead views that same span of life through the eyes of a range of different men. While there are obvious differences, though, between the men, with some significant variation in social status alongside the obvious variety of ages, there are also many similarities. Is the book ‘all that man is’ in the sense of man in his ‘rich diversity’, or rather, ‘all that man is’ in the sense that, ultimately, there is not much to set us all apart? Is this limited range part of the point: at the heart of it, we’re all driven by the same few things and all destined for the same outcome?
Helen of Nowhere (2025)
Helen of Nowhere focuses on an academic, known only as ‘Man’, who has recently lost his job as an English professor and separated from his wife (‘Wife’). He taught on largely transcendentalist themes, which are now being challenged by his (largely female) colleagues and students. His accusation that a student’s work may have been plagiarised was apparently the root of his dismissal, but he believes that he was in the process of being managed out in any case. His wife appears to have tired of him for numerous reasons, and is focused on her own writing career. ‘Man’ is considering a move to the country, and is shown around a large property by ‘Realtor’. The property’s former owner ‘Helen’ is now apparently in care, and has left the task of its sale to the realtor who apparently also lived in the house with her for some time.
The Palm House (2026)
The Palm House focuses on the friendship between Laura Miller (the narrator) and Edmund Putnam (known mainly as ‘Putnam’) two characters working in the London media landscape, set close to the present day. Over the course of a long weekend, they meet several times for drinks and crisps, and discuss the state of their lives, and share stories from their past. Putnam is coming to the terms with the death of his father and dealing with the arrival of a terrible new boss at Sequence, the cultural publication he has spent decades working for, and Laura is still somewhat in the shadow of her performative and over-the-top mother, and is somewhat listless in her current life and looking for ways to improve her circumstance.
Flashlight (2025)
Flashlight begins with the disappearance of Serk, a Korean émigré and academic, during a walk on along the coast in a small Japanese town with his young daughter, Louisa. While Serk is presumed drowned, Louisa washes ashore hours later, traumatized and unable to recall what has happened. The books subsequently spans decades and continents, as Louisa and her American mother, Anne, struggle to cope with their grief and the mystery of his vanishing. This sits against the complex geopolitical backdrop of the late 20th century, particularly focusing on the lives of Korean immigrants in Japan and the unsettling history of North Korea.
Audition (2025)
Audition is very much a novel of two halves. A cliche, and one which has come up more than once in my recent reading, but never more true than here. In its first part, we are introduced to an unnamed female narrator, preparing for a role in an upcoming play, in which she is notably struggling to nail a key scene. A young man, Xavier, meets her for lunch in an upmarket restaurant, having previously explained that he believes she may be his mother (a seeming impossibility as the narrator has never given birth). They are observed briefly by her husband, Tomas, an art critic, who seems somewhat weary of her affairs and is behaving a little shiftily himself.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny (2025)
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is an epic family saga centring on the lives of Sonia Shah and Sunny Bhatia, two young people from India whose paths intertwine. The story is initiated by a clumsy and half-hearted failed attempt to engineer an arranged marriage between the two by their neighbouring families in India. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who has been studying in Vermont, returns home to India after a deeply troubling relationship in New York with a memorably deranged and controlling older artist named Ilan de Toorjen Foss. She is haunted by this encounter, believing he may have cast a "dark spell" on her (which manifests - seemingly physically - as a ‘ghost hound’ later in the novel). Sunny, a struggling journalist, is working for the Associated Press in New York City, living in Brooklyn with his American girlfriend Ulla. He too returns to his home country, initially to help his friend Satya in his own attempts to secure an arranged marriage.
The Rest of Our Lives (2025)
The Rest of Our Lives focuses on the 50-something law professor Tom Layward, based in New York with his wife Amy and about to see their youngest child Miri off to college in Pittsburgh. We learn early on in the novel that Amy had cheated on Tom over a decade ago, at which point he had privately vowed to leave her after their children had both left home. As they prepare for Miri’s departure, both experience some degree of ‘empty nester’ anxiety and Amy decides to stay home rather than face the emotional trauma first-hand.
The South (2025)
The South is the first book in a planned quartet that centres on a family navigating a period of significant change both in Malaysia and in their own lives. The main events of the novel are set around 1997 and the Asian financial crisis, following the Lim family as they travel from their home in Kuala Lumpur to a dilapidated farm they have inherited in Johor, southern Malaysia. The central plot of the novel revolves around 16-year-old Jay's coming-of-age and sexual awakening. On the farm, he meets Chuan, the son of the farm's manager, and a transformative relationship develops between them over the course of the summer.
Flesh (2025)
Flesh is set over most of the life of one man, István, with its main action taking place in his home country of Hungary, and London. We first meet István as a fifteen-year-old, living with his single mother in a new town. In an unsettling first chapter, István is (initially reluctantly) drawn into a sexual relationship by a much older woman, a friend of his mother’s. This relationship ends in tragedy, with István implicated in the death of her husband and subsequently serving time in a juvenile prison. The rest of the novel jumps forward in time for each chapter, often skipping significant moments in his life and focusing instead on their impact on him. Following a stint in the army during the 2003 war in Iraq, he moves to London where several chance developments lead him to a life of luxury. Up to a point, the novel seems like a classic ‘Rags to Riches’ narrative, but in its later chapters, we see István’s life gradually collapsing around him, and his eventual return to a relatively humble life in Hungary.
The Land in Winter (2024)
The Land in Winter takes place in a remote community in the West Country of England during the famously harsh winter of 1962-63 (known as the ‘Big Freeze’). It focuses on two couples, neighbours separated by a field. Eric Parry is a local doctor, well-established in the community and married to Irene. They’re ostensibly a picture-perfect upper middle class couple, hosting dinner parties and very much conscious of their elevated status in their small community. The farm nearby has recently been bought by Bill Simmons, on something of a whim. He lives there with his relatively modern young wife Rita, who is adapting from her previous party life in the bars and clubs of Bristol. While Bill is also not exactly poor, he’s from an immigrant family (though not obviously) and the status of ‘farmer’ in the 1960s still very much carried an implication of lower social status than the Parrys. While Eric and Bill struggle to connect (or even really contemplate that they would), their wives are both pregnant and begin to form an unlikely bond.
One Boat (2025)
One Boat is told from the perspective of Teresa, a contract lawyer and aspiring author from the UK. She has recently lost her father and is making a return visit to the same Greek coastal town she visited after the death of her mother nine years before. The novel jumps back and forth between Teresa’s encounters with the same characters nine years apart: notably Xanthe, the owner of a cafe she frequents; Niko, a younger diving instructor with whom she had an affair on her first visit but is now married with a daughter; and Petros, a long-time resident also originally from the UK with whom she has lengthy philosophical conversations. There’s also a focus on another Englishman, John, who she met on her first visit and who told her of his anger and desire for revenge for the violent death of his nephew.
Universality (2025)
Universality begins with a long first section written in the style of a journalistic ‘long read’. It recounts the tale of a crime which took place at an illegal rave on a Yorkshire farm, in which the leader of a radical anarchist movement is bludgeoned with a gold bar by a young man called Jake. In the article, presented as a kind of moral parable about class and wealth based divisions in our society, we are introduced to Jake’s mother, a populist ‘anti-Woke’ columnist who goes by the name of Lenny. We additionally meet Richard Spencer, the owner of the farm whose gold bar was used in the crime. He’s a wealthy banker who is presented as symptomatic of the ills of capitalism.
Seascraper (2025)
Seascraper begins by introducing us to Thomas Flett, a young man in a Northern English coastal town in the 1960s who works in the seemingly already slightly anachronistic profession of a “shanker”, using a horse and cart to collect shrimp in often hazardous conditions from a beach littered with “sinkpits”. He lives with his mother, who had him as a teenager and has been shunned by the local community. She relies on him to earn money, which he does through his unsociable, repetitive and physically exhausting work.
The Mars Room (2018)
The Mars Room has as its protagonist Romy Hall, a San Francisco single mother and erstwhile stripper who is serving two life sentences in Stanville Correctional Facility for murder. She has killed a man, that much is true, but a man who was going to great lengths to stalk her, having struck up what he saw as a ‘relationship’ in the Mars Room, the strip club Romy performed in. That she has committed a crime is not disputed, but the fragments we see of her trial expose the fact that the criminal justice system leaves no room for nuance. Her primary concern in prison is initially survival, but shifts to the wellbeing of her young son Jackson once she hears that her mother, his guardian, has died.