The Booker Prize, the leading literary award in the English-speaking world, has brought global recognition and readership to outstanding fiction for over 50 years. Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of our judges, the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK.  

But this year we don’t just want to hear what our official judges think. We have the exciting opportunity for six UK book clubs to help rate and review the Booker Prize 2022 shortlist. Members of the winning book club will be invited to attend this year’s Booker Prize winner ceremony in London.  

We’ve teamed up with The Reading Agency to launch the Booker Prize Book Club Challenge and we are inviting book clubs from all backgrounds and from all over the UK to apply.  

Once all applications are received, the judges of the Booker Prize 2022, chaired by Neil MacGregor, will help select our six groups. They are looking for the most interesting, passionate and wide-ranging set of readers possible, as well as those who will shout the loudest about this year’s Booker Prize shortlist on social media to help encourage even more people to pick up those books. 

After we have chosen our six book clubs, two representatives of each club will be invited to attend our the Booker Prize 2022 official shortlist announcement party at the Serpentine Pavilion, London, on September 6, where they will receive a set of copies of one of the shortlisted titles. (The Booker Prize Foundation will cover the reasonable travel, accommodation and subsistence expenses.)

Our six chosen book clubs will then be asked to read, discuss and review their assigned book in detail over the following month, sharing their views with the Booker Prize’s and The Reading Agency’s community of readers via social media and on the Booker Prize and the Reading Groups for Everyone websites. The Booker Prize’s editorial team may wish to interview members of each of our chosen clubs about the experience of taking part in our challenge. We may also wish to photograph or film members of each club.  

Please do not enter if your club does not wish to engage with any of activities outlined above. 

Our judges will then read and discuss all of the book clubs’ reviews of – and social media activity relating to – their assigned books. Two members of the club who, in our judges’ opinion, provided the most original and engaging reviews will be invited to attend the Booker Prize 2022 ceremony and dinner at The Roundhouse, London, on October 17. (Again, the Booker Prize Foundation will cover the reasonable travel, accommodation and subsistence expenses.)

How to enter 

If you would like to apply to take part, please tell us more about your book club by filling in the form on The Reading Agency’s website and submitting it before 12 August 2022. You’ll find our full terms and conditions there, too.

Good luck!