70 classic Booker Prize-nominated novels
From books that changed the world to contemporary works that are certain to endure, these are your must-read classics from the Booker Library
Editors’ picks: our favourite Booker Prize-nominated books to read this summer
From the nostalgia of the British seaside to distant, sun-soaked landscapes, discover the Booker Prizes team’s handpicked recommendations to add to your summer reading list
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Two women arrive at a Spanish village, bordered by the glittering Mediterranean Sea on one side and the arid desert on the other. One of them is dealing with a mysterious years-long illness, while her daughter has brought them both here in search of a cure that may lie beyond the bounds of conventional medicine. In the blistering and often oppressive heat, the two women begin to see themselves – and each other – in a new light. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016, and with its sun-baked Andalusian setting, Deborah Levy’s hypnotic tale of womanhood, sexuality and the primal bond between mother and daughter is the perfect book to plunge into over the summer months.
Indira Birnie, Senior audience and social manager
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The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall
Sarah Hall’s evocative, 2004 shortlisted novel, opens with her protagonist, Cy, looking out of a dirty window in a shabby guest house and staring longingly at the horizon beyond Morecambe Bay. As someone who spent many childhood summers on the Lancashire coast wondering just how far the sea had retreated and whether it was ever going to return, it was easy to connect with Cy’s wistfulness, and how he could be drawn to Coney Island, in many ways Morecambe’s twin across the water. Between the two locations, the book is a sensuous tale of the seaside and the circus, love and longing and ‘mechanical embroidery’.
Sarah Rogers, Director of finance and operations
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Skios by Michael Frayn
Set on a beautiful Greek island, Skios is a comic story of mistaken identity as Dr Norman Wilfred, a world-famous professor on ‘the scientific organisation of science’, is due to give a speech at an annual conference. Far more youthful and charming than everyone expects, he dazzles the guests while another, older Dr Norman Wilfred is at the other end of the island, lost and angry. An array of mishaps and adventures ensue as the characters find themselves in farcical situations. A smart, fast-paced and funny read, Skios is the perfect companion for a long flight or sunbathing session on the beach – hopefully, a beautiful Greek island.
Emily Facoory, Digital content executive
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The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor
The faded British seaside is a popular setting for Booker Prize-nominated novels, from Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach to Stanley Middleton’s Holiday. As in real life, there’s often a bleakness and a dark sense of nostalgia to the fictional depiction of the UK coast, a place of haunting memories and small-town secrets – there’s usually something nasty lurking beneath the picture postcard surface. In William Trevor’s The Children of Dynmouth, a lonely, sadistic teenager – Timothy Gedge – quietly terrorises the residents of a sleepy seaside town like a malevolent seagull, worming his way into a succession of relationships and leaving them on the brink of destruction. Joyce Carol Oates called the book ‘a small masterpiece of understatement’ and it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1976 – one of five works by Trevor to be nominated for the prize. Only Beryl Bainbridge was nominated more times without actually winning.
Paul Davies, Head of editorial
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Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
If you like the romance and historical sweep of The English Patient, you might also enjoy Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, which won the Booker Prize in 1985. It tells the life story of historian Claudia Hampton in extended flashbacks from her death-bed: the interwar years as a child fossil hunting with her brother in Lyme Regis; her unconventional relationship with Jasper, the father of her daughter; and other episodes which demonstrate Claudia’s wit and drive. However, it is the central sequence in the book that covers Claudia’s time as a correspondent in Cairo during the Second World War, and in particular, her romance with doomed tank commander Tom Southern, that elevates Moon Tiger to classic status. Lively drew on her own childhood in Cairo to bring this part of the novel to life, and the result is utterly transporting.
Jonathan Davenport, Executive producer, podcast and video
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Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
This book drops us into in the world of 44-year-old Micah Mortimer, a simple, decent guy who lives a structured existence of routines and habits and earns his crust as a local on-call tech support guy. His side hustle as the ‘Super’ for his Baltimore apartment building brings him into contact with a variety of characters and although he manages to keep in touch with his chaotically busy family and actually has a girlfriend, it becomes clear that he’s somehow living quite a lonely life. When a couple of very unexpected things happen to Micah, we witness the inevitable unravelling of his daily routines and his reactions. Funny and fast-flowing, Redhead by the Side of the Road is delightfully entertaining ‘slice of life’ storytelling – the perfect book to pick up in the warmer months.
Sinéad Sillars, Digital producer
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Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
As a more casual and often fragmentary reader, I like something I can dip in and out of easily when on the go over summer. If you also prefer an essay to a doorstopper, I’d suggest picking up the 2018 International Booker Prize-winner Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft. It’s a meditation on travel, which leaps back and forth through time, detailing journeys, exploring identity, and reflecting on place. In between, Tokarczuk provides sketches, anecdotes, and facts. Told through 116 vignettes – the shortest of which is just a single sentence long – Flights challenges the convention of a traditional novel.
The book won the International Booker Prize in 2018, the same year Tokarczuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and this book shows exactly why. It’s undeniably ambitious and a work that challenges the reader to piece together its narrative, but the end result is well worth it. Whether you’re journeying by plane, train, or automobile, you won’t find a better travel companion this summer.
Donna Mackay-Smith, Deputy head of editorial
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