Reading · The Reading Receipt — by Laura of What to Read Next

One of my favorite parts of hosting a book recommendation podcast is to connect with all types of readers. I love hearing about their reading taste, their personal challenges and how they support the reading community.

I met Deedi Brown about 9 years ago as we were part of Girls Night In NYC Book Club. We both were new to instagram who happened to live in Jersey City. We met IRL a few times and even though we both have moved out of the NYC area we have kept in touch.

Deedi is one of my literary meets fantasy friends. She loves reading Award Winning books, heck she gets to attend the National Book Award after party every year. But she also loves to read fantasy. She is currently re-reading the Divergent trilogy (I am not sure if I am ready to put myself forth for the pain again).

Last year, I sat down with Deedi Brown to talk about the Booker Prize. And with the 2026 longlist dropping last week, it felt like the perfect moment to pull that conversation into a proper reading guide.

If “Booker Prize” makes you think “intimidating,” “slow,” or “homework” — I get it. But Deedi convinced me there’s a much friendlier way in. Here’s what I learned.

Hey Substacker, if you are:

📚 Reader who used to read self-help and productivity books and now reads fiction for self-care, joy and just escape.

💞Mostly a Romance Reader and/or 🔪Mystery/Thriller Reader or dabble a bit on buzzy releases.

📲Libby User looking for tricks to maximize your holds/borrows

🖊️Want to know what your favorite authors read and recommend

Join us at What to Read Next Podcast here on Substack. As a multi-passionate, high producer (🔥burned out), extrovert, eldest daughter millennial I started a podcast to talk to authors and readers about the books they love and recommend. In this Substack, I share curated book lists, essays for readers, all of the LIBBY tips and yup, what your favorite author loves to read that will topple your TBR.

Deedi didn’t set out to build a book club — she set out to read the 2019 Booker longlist by herself, one book a month (the “Booker Dozen” is 13 books, so you double up once to get through them in a year). Friends wanted in. Lockdown hit. And Booker of the Month was born.

Six years later, it’s grown into one of the warmest corners of the bookish internet — a Zoom-based group with regulars from all over the world, meeting on the last Monday of the month at 8pm Eastern.

How they structure the year:

They start with the most buzzy, accessible pick on the longlist — something a lot of members already have on their TBR
They wait for the shortlist announcement (usually late September) before locking in the rest of the year’s schedule
That way, the group has the best shot at reading the eventual winner before it’s announced in November
Once the shortlist books are done, they circle back and read the rest of the longlist

If you’ve ever wanted a low-pressure, no-gatekeeping way into literary fiction, this is it.

https://deedireads.com/booker-of-the-month

Instagram: @deedireads
Substack: deedireads.substack.com
Website: deedireads.com

You don’t need to read all 13 longlisted books (nobody does that in one go, and honestly, most Booker of the Month members don’t either). Here’s the low-pressure approach Deedi shared:

Start with the most accessible or buzzy title. Every longlist has at least one book people are already talking about. Start there — momentum matters more than “correctness.”
Wait for the shortlist if you’re overwhelmed. The shortlist (six books) is a much more manageable entry point than the full Dozen.
Try tandem reading for tricky ones. Deedi’s trick for denser literary fiction or fantasy: read the physical book while listening to the audiobook. It keeps your brain anchored, especially through slow openings or world-building-heavy sections.
Audiobooks + library holds are your friend. Budget-friendly reading applies to prize fiction too — check your library’s Libby/Hoopla for backlist Booker titles before buying.
Some books reward a reread. The Booker judges have said they specifically look for novels that hold up (or even improve) on a second read. If a book feels like it went over your head, that might be the point — not a reason to bail.
Find your people. A discussion group (or even one friend reading along) makes denser books infinitely more enjoyable. This isn’t a genre built for solo skimming.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The 2026 “Booker Dozen” was announced today, selected from 163 eligible titles published in the UK/Ireland between October 2025 and September 2026. This year’s list leans into genre-blending — dystopian sci-fi, crime thriller, campus novel, and historical fiction all show up. Two former winners are back: Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain, 2020) and Marlon James (A Brief History of Seven Killings, 2015). There are also three debut novels on the list.

Here’s the full 2026 longlist:

The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis — a Mexico City hospital friendship story exploring grief and memory
Switzy by Emma Cline — a darkly funny, elegiac novel following a man’s final journey to an assisted-suicide clinic in Zurich
Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman — a brief, poetic, fairy-tale-like novel about a disgraced professor rebuilding his life
The End of Everything by M. John Harrison — bleak, satirical dystopian fiction set on the Kent coast amid societal collapse
The Disappearers by Marlon James — returns to 1980s Jamaica to explore a hate-motivated murder and its aftermath
Black Bag by Luke Kennard — a twisted campus satire and unconventional love story
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan (debut) — a surreal premise where a bathroom renovation opens into a magical Turkish prison cell
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry (debut) — a puzzle-box novel set in an unnamed medieval court
The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley — an intimate, dialogue-driven story of two old friends navigating grief
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout — a quietly devastating portrait of an ordinary Massachusetts teacher’s isolation
John of John by Douglas Stuart — a young man returns to a repressive childhood home on the Isle of Harris
All Them Dogs by Djamel White (debut) — a tender, savage story set in West Dublin’s criminal underworld
The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams — a gothic, experimental campus novel billed as a new kind of love story

Key dates to know:

Shortlist (6 books) announced: September 22, 2026
Winner announced: November 9, 2026

If you want to follow Booker of the Month’s approach: pick one or two of the above that already sound appealing, and hold off on the rest until the shortlist narrows things down for you.

If jumping into an unreleased longlist book feels like too much of a gamble, here are some past Booker favorites (and near-misses) that came up in our conversation — a gentler on-ramp into the prize:

Orbital by Samantha Harvey — 2024 winner; short, existential, and set entirely in space (not sci-fi, but reads with that same sense of wonder)
My Friends by Hisham Matar — a National Book Award nominee and Booker contender about friendship and exile
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden — won the Women’s Prize; recommended especially for romance readers looking for something with real heat
Held by Anne Michaels — short but dense; one of those “read it twice” books
Playground by Richard Powers — from the author of The Overstory; possibly his best work yet
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle — Pulitzer winner, sharp and unconventional

None of these require you to have read anything else on this list first. Pick whichever premise grabs you and go.

Deedi and I talked about a lot more than what’s here — her reading life since becoming a parent, why she splits her reading between literary fiction and fantasy, and how she’s navigated building an online reading community since the early Bookstagram days.

How to Actually Read the Booker Prize (Without Losing Your Mind)