The winner of the Booker Prize 2005 will be announced on Monday November 10. I only read one novel from the longlist, Love Forms by Trinidad and Tobagan author Claire Adam (my review here). Initially, I perceived on the list as being too clever with the form, even if that is a characteristic of literary fiction, but then I saw two novels that fit my own preference, written by women, about lesser known cultures.

Below is a reminder of the six books on the shortlist being considered for the prize with a quote from the author and another from the judges answering different questions about each novel. You can read more interesting facts about the shortlisted authors here.

In the coming days I’ll share my thoughts on the two that I am reading, Flashlight by Susan Choi (my review here) and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (my review here).

The Booker Shortlist 2025

Penned in English, these shortlisted books are worldly in settings and universal in their themes, often featuring characters living outside their familiar communities and cultures, navigating a diverse set of eye-opening challenges, exposing aspects of history and geopolitical issues from Hungary to Japan, from Venice to New York, from India to England’s West Country.  

If you click on the title of the book, you can read an extract from the novel:

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (India)

‘I wanted to write a present-day romance with an old-fashioned beauty’

– The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the epic tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is said to be the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists. 

What do you think it is about this book that readers will not only admire, but really love?  

Its rich intricacies and the sheer bounty each page offers. Inter-generational family saga, sharp humour, poignant love story, state-of-the-nation novel, this book has it all. As a result, reading The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is an immersive, wonderful experience. 

Flashlight by Susan Choi (US)

‘Reading a great book feels like being dropped onto an alien planet’

– Flashlight moves between the post-war Korean immigrant community in Japan, to suburban America, to two children trying to forge their own identities, and an eye-opening venture into the fate of those returned to North Korea, an astonishing story of one family swept up in the tides of 20th-century history. 

What do you think it is about this book that readers will not only admire, but really love?  

The scale of it, and the life-spanning trajectories of these characters of whom we get such intimate knowledge: all their drama and pain and, very occasionally, their joy. We found Flashlight to be one of those books that completely dominates your thoughts while you’re reading it. 

Audition by Katie Kitamura (US)

‘As a culture, we’re becoming quite bad at holding a contradiction in our heads’

– An exhilarating, destabilising novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.

Is there something unique about this book, something that you haven’t encountered in fiction before?  

Yes, the way Kitamura transitions between supposed reality – modern-day Manhattan – and something deeper and stranger, is bracing. She doesn’t hand-hold or explain, which some might see as a kind of hostility towards the reader. We saw it as a marker of trust. 

This is a very controlled performance of a book that intentionally leaves a lot open to interpretation. We think readers will love finding others who’ve read it and talking to them about what it all might mean.  

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits (US)

‘I wanted to write about a certain period of family life coming to an end’

– An unforgettable road trip of a novel about a middle-aged academic whose marriage, career and body are failing him. Pitch perfect, quietly exhilarating and moving, The Rest of Our Lives is a novel about family, marriage and those moments which may come to define us.

What do you think it is about this book that readers will not only admire, but really love? 

Tom is not a literary king – he’s a dad and basketball enthusiast. We think readers will admire and enjoy high-concept analysis recounted by a ridiculously relatable narrator. 

The star of this novel is Tom’s voice: the lodestar and the ‘why now’. He is a democratic guide, he’s delightfully embarrassed, and he is as observant as he is negligent. But what’s most impressive is Markovits’ dedication to Tom as an averagely flawed human. Tom makes bad jokes, he’s a pushover, and it’s difficult to imagine being taken with him in person. 

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (UK)

‘I’ll write anywhere, with anything, on anything’

– A masterful, page-turning examination of the minutiae of life and a dazzling chronicle of the human heart. As the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards, two couples find their lives beginning to unravel.  
  
Where do you hide when you can’t leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to? 

Although it’s a work of fiction, is there anything about it that’s especially relevant to issues we’re confronting in today’s world?  

The novel is set during the harsh winter of 1962-63 and, given what’s been happening to the weather since then, a harsh winter would be reassuring. But the novel is about the tensions within marriage and other relationships and those tensions are the same today as they were back then. How to live: that’s the big human issue and it forms the spine of the book. 

Flesh by David Szalay (Hungary-UK)

‘I wanted to write about what it’s like to be a living body in the world’

– A propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp. Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the 21st century’s tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London’s super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.

What do you think it is about this book that readers will not only admire, but really love? 

Flesh is a disquisition on the art of being alive, and all the affliction that comes along with it, but it is also an absolute page-turner. It’s nearly impossible to put down. The emotional detachment of the main character, István, is sustained by the tremendous movement of the plot. The pace of this novel speaks to one of the greater themes; the detachment of our bodies from our decisions. 

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Have you read any of these novels from the shortlist? Do you have a favourite to win?