The Essential Booker Prize Reading List
As we celebrate the 2026 Booker Prize win of Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shūang- zǐ, here’s a peek at Picador’s Booker-blessed books from the past few years.
Taiwan Travelogue
'With sumptuous food writing, laugh-out-loud dialogue and metafictional twists, this novel was impossible to put down. Taiwan Travelogue pulls off an incredible double act: it succeeds as both a delicious romance and an incisive postcolonial novel’
The International Booker Prize 2026 judges
On the 2024 Longlist
JAMES by Percival Everett
A 'Book of the Year' in The Observer, The Times & Sunday Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Spectator, New Statesman, Independent, TLS, The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, i newspaper, The Economist, The Irish Times, The New York Times, TIME and The New Yorker
'Who should read this book? Every single person in the country' – Ann Patchett
'My favourite novel this year' – Salman Rushdie
HEADSHOT by Rita Bullwinkel
A Book of the Year for the New York Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Times, NPR, Elle and Vulture*
One of Barack Obama's Favourite Reads of Summer 2024
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction Best Debut
‘Explosive’ Guardian
‘An absolute knock-out . . . Excellent’ Daily Telegraph
‘An ambitious, exciting debut. You emerge from it sweaty, pummelled and ready for your next fight’ Times
The Booker Backlist
A look at our Booker-blessed books from the past few years
