The Booker Longlist for 2023 has been announced. Of the 13 nominations, 5 are debut novels but the remaining 8 have had previous novels published. Here are our suggestions of the nominated author’s books to read before you dive into the Booker longlist.
Sinéad Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terrifying secret.
No-one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital, and certainly not her family.
She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie.
But she can’t go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future.
Somehow, Sinéad needs to seize the moment, and maybe then she can learn to be free…
How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney is Booker 2023 longlisted.
The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray
What links the Investment Bank of Torabundo, www.myhotswaitress.com (yes, hots with an s, don’t ask), an art heist, a novel called For the Love of a Clown, a four-year-old boy named after TV detective Remington Steele, a lonely French banker, a tiny Pacific island, and a pest control business run by an ex-KGB man? You guessed it . . .
The Mark and the Void is Paul Murray’s madcap new novel of institutional folly, following the success of his wildly original breakout hit, Skippy Dies. While marooned at his banking job in the bewilderingly damp and insular realm known as Ireland, Claude Martingale is approached by a down-on-his-luck author, Paul, looking for his next great subject. Claude finds that his life gets steadily more exciting under Paul’s fictionalizing influence; he even falls in love with a beautiful waitress. But Paul’s plan is not what it seems-and neither is Claude’s employer, the Bank of Torabundo, which inflates through dodgy takeovers and derivatives-trading until-well, you can probably guess how that shakes out.
The Mark and the Void is a stirring examination of the deceptions carried out in the names of art, love and commerce – and is also probably the funniest novel ever written about a financial crisis.
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray’s is Booker 2023 longlisted.
Gathering Evidence by Martin Macinnes
With extinction imminent, researchers visit an exclusive national park to observe one of the last troops of bonobo chimpanzees. Amid unusual behaviour and unexplained deaths, Shel Murray suspects her team is being hunted. Back at home, Shel’s partner is attacked touring their new property.
Amnesiac and quarantined, John is visited by an inscrutable doctor, tending to the still fresh wounds. As his memory returns, John questions not only the assault, but the renewed marks on his body, and the black fungus now growing on the walls.
A sudden event changes everything. Shel is interrogated over the expedition in the park; John throws himself into work, developing new software. Together, with a greater understanding of how much they have to lose, they face a grave threat, something that promises to devour everything.
In Ascension by Martin Macinnes is Booker 2023 longlisted.
Hector and Bolivar set sail from their South American fishing village on what they believe to be a routine expedition.
But then a devastating storm casts them adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
With no means of contacting the outside world and no sign of rescue, their only hope lies with one another. Both men must confront the truth about themselves, and the regrets that they have spent a lifetime trying to forget, if they are to survive.
Part gripping story of resilience, part fearless existential parable, Beyond the Sea is a meditation on what it means to be human, in a world that pushes us to the brink.
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch is Booker 2023 longlisted.
The Coming Bad Days by Sarah Bernstein
A woman leaves the man she lives with and moves to a low stone cottage in a university town. She joins an academic department and, high up in her office on the thirteenth floor, begins a research project on the poet Paul Celan. She knows nothing of Celan, still less of her new neighbours or colleagues.
She is in self-imposed exile, hoping to find dignity in her loneliness. Like everywhere, the abiding feeling in the city is one of paranoia.
The weather is deteriorating, the ordinary lives of women are in peril, and an unexplained curfew has been imposed.
But then she meets Clara, a woman who is her exact opposite: decisive, productive and assured. As their friendship grows in intimacy Clara suggests another way of living – until an act of violence threatens to sever everything between them.
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein is Booker 2023 nominated.
The Lives of Saints by Sebastian Barry
From A Long Long Way, his Booker shortlisted novel about the Irish soldiers who fought for Britain during the First World War to his Donal McCann starring hit play, The Steward of Christendom; from his first Costa Book of the Year winning novel The Secret Scripture to his second, Days Without End, a decade later, Sebastian Barry’s writing career has been as long and varied as it has extraordinary.
Intimate, revealing and generous of heart, these three lectures – written and delivered as part of his three year tenure as the Laureate for Irish fiction – reflect on his life and career so far, and some of the formative moments and people he’s met along the way.
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry is Booker 2023 longlisted.
The Gift of The Rain by Tan Twan Eng
enang, 1939. Sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton is a loner.
Half English, half Chinese and feeling neither, he discovers a sense of belonging in an unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat.
Philip shows his new friend around his adored island of Penang, and in return Endo trains him in the art and discipline of aikido.
But such friendship comes at a terrible price.
Tan Twan Eng’s masterful debut novel is a haunting and unforgettable story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, steadfast courage and enduring love.
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng is Booker 2023 nominated.
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything. But when her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear.
Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me is a story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the power of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood.
It is a tale about the desperate attempts we make to save ourselves, and those we love, from heartbreak.
A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo is Booker 2023 longlisted.