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Whether you’re new to the shortlist and wondering where to start, or would like to explore it more deeply, our guides are packed with insights and discussion points

Dreamlike and unsettling, The Witch is set in a small French town where a mediocre witch passes on her gifts to her twin daughters, who turn out to have skills far beyond her own

Set across four decades, The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran is about revolution, oppression, resistance and freedom, charting one family’s flight from and return to Iran

Exposing the dangerous illusions of the silver screen, The Director explores the complicated relationships between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator 

A bittersweet story of love between two women, Taiwan Travelogue is also an artful exploration of language, history and power. Taiwan Travelogue won the International Booker Prize in 2026

Dark and poetic, She Who Remains is a novel about identity, gender, love, freedom, and societal norms

Stark and unsettling, On Earth As It is Beneath is set in a forgotten prison in remote Brazil where life has taken a sadistic, deadly turn

Beryl Bainbridge is known for writing idiosyncratic, macabre, psychologically astute, often hilarious novels. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times – but which of her many books should you read first?

Full of backstage scandal and romantic intrigue, this darkly comic novel is about class, the long shadow of war, and unrequited first love