My next Booker book: what our authors and judges will be reading this year

The formidable ‘to-be-read’ pile. As book lovers, we’ve all got one. Some are towering: a guilty secret that grows larger by the day, side-eyeing you every time you cross its path. Others are small and efficient: a carefully considered, bare-bones collection, patiently waiting for their spines to be cracked.

And since a new year is the perfect time to refresh - or add to - that TBR stack, we decided to celebrate by inviting several Booker-nominated authors, translators and judges to have a metaphorical rummage through the hundreds of titles in the Booker Library, to pick out a book they’re planning to read in 2023.

So while we can’t help tackle any groaning book piles, we can promise to add some of the finest books in fiction to kickstart your reading journey this year.

Marlon James will be reading… The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens

The Elected Member seems to be one of those Booker winners to have since vanished from the public imagination, which makes it feel like a ‘lost’ Booker - despite its win. It won the year I was born, in 1970, which gives me a selfish interest. Both Antonia Fraser and Rebecca West judged it the best, and their tastes are as legendary as their books. More than anything else I’m curious about how a late 60s and early 70s eye viewed drug addiction. I am looking for humanity and I hope I find it.

Marlon James won the Booker Prize 2015 with his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings

Shahidha Bari will be reading… Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

This year, I’ll be reading Penelope Fitzgerald’s 1979 Booker Prize-winning novel, Offshore, about an eccentric gang of houseboat owners, moored along the Battersea stretch of the River Thames. I found a second-hand copy with Giles Gilbert Scott’s old Battersea Power Station on the cover - ferociously pumping plumes of smoke into the London sky, rather than the serene shopping complex it is now! There’s also a character called Maurice who lives on a boat called ‘Maurice’, which is an idea that tickles me. Fitzgerald was apparently the compromise for judges divided between big novels by Naipaul and Golding that year, but I suspect she’s every bit their equal. 

Shahidha Bari is a broadcaster, academic and judge of the Booker Prize 2022

Roddy Doyle will be reading… Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

Deborah Levy’s living autobiographies are some of the best books I’ve read but I’ve never read her fiction. I have a copy of Hot Milk but every time I’m choosing a new book to read, I look past it and pick up a different book. I’m nervous, I think: the fiction won’t be as superb as the non-fiction. But, actually, I don’t believe that - it’s just daft. Levy wrote, in Real Estate, ‘Language is a building site.’ So this year, I’ll be putting on a hard hat and I’ll be reading Hot Milk.

Roddy Doyle won the Booker Prize 1993 with his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha 

Anton Hur will be reading… Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan, translated by Labodalih Sembiring

Almost 700 million people live in Southeast Asia, but before 2022, only one book from the ASEAN member states has ever been nominated for the International Booker Prize - Man Tiger by Indonesia’s Eka Kurniawan, translated by Labodalih Sembiring. Fellow Indonesian author Norman Erikson Pasaribu and translator Tiffany Tsao broke the streak when Happy Stories, Mostly was longlisted six years after, and since I’ve already read that (excellent) book, I might as well read the only other Southeast Asian book in the Booker Library and hope for more readers to unlock the awesome riches of this region in the near future.

Anton Hur was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2022 for his translation of Cursed Bunny, written by Bora Chung