In Need of a New Page-Turner? Allow the Booker Prize Shortlist to Help

Are you a bookworm in need of a new story to dive into? Inspiration is coming, pals. The shortlist for the 2022 Booker Prize has been announced, offering a list of six titles worthy of your attention.

Let’s take a squiz through them all, shall we?

What is the Booker Prize?

If you’re new to this award, allow us to offer a brief introduction. The Booker Prize is an annual event, that recognises what is considered to be the best fiction work by authors published in the UK and Ireland.

Per the Booker Prize website, the award is described as:

The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades.

Since 1969 titles like The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee and Life of Pi by Yann Martel have walked away with the award, which is respected widely. You can find the full list of the winners from past years here.

2022 Booker Prize shortlist

There are six books that have been included in the shortlist for the 2022 Booker Prize. Here are the titles and their descriptions via the Booker website.

Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

This energetic and exhilarating joyride from NoViolet Bulawayo is the story of an uprising, told by a vivid chorus of animal voices that help us see our human world more clearly.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan’s tender tale of hope and quiet heroism is both a celebration of compassion and a stern rebuke of the sins committed in the name of religion.

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

This latest fiction from a remarkable and enduring talent brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of the world around him.

The Trees by Percival Everett

A violent history refuses to be buried in Percival Everett’s striking novel, which combines an unnerving murder mystery with a powerful condemnation of racism and police violence.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

Shehan Karunatilaka’s rip-roaring epic is a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war.

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

Bestselling author Elizabeth Strout returns to her beloved heroine Lucy Barton in a luminous novel about love, loss, and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any time.

And the longlist, if you want more options

There are an additional seven books that were included in the 2022 Booker Prize longlist which are also worth considering for your collection at home if you’d like a new read.

• The Colony by Audrey Magee
• After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
• Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
• Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
• Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
• Trust by Hernan Diaz
• Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

If none of those captures your attention, here are some of the most-searched-for Aussie titles and a list of epic new releases that are turning heads.