Edmund de Waal on this year's Booker Prize shortlist
The chair of judges details works by Rachel Kushner, Percival Everett and others

The artist, writer and chair of the 2024 Booker Prize panel describes this year's shortlist: the six best novels of the year published in English, in the judges' view. The winner will be announced on 12 November.
James
Percival Everett, 2024
Everett has described his novel as a "conversation" with the "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". It is a powerful conversation. Jim, an enslaved man who discovers he is to be sold away from his family, becomes James, a potently articulate protagonist and commentator in the tumult of the Deep South.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Orbital
Samantha Harvey, 2023
Set on the International Space Station over 24 hours, this short and lyrical novel charts the lives of the six people in the cramped spacecraft as they observe the world beneath them, in all its beauty and vulnerability.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Creation Lake
Rachel Kushner, 2024
An uncategorisable novel – part spy-story, part- meditation on prehistory – that takes an American assassin to rural France to infiltrate a community of eco-activists. Funny, resonant and totally gripping, it asks searching questions about our compulsion to understand where we come from.
Available on The Week Bookshop
The Safekeep
Yael van der Wouden, 2024
Set in the Netherlands after WWII, this is a compelling story of obsession and secrets. It is quietly devastating, simultaneously a love story and a narrative of life after the Holocaust.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Held
Anne Michaels, 2023
This kaleidoscope of a novel is created from the scattered images and memories of four generations of a family. Through fragmentary passages, it asks with tenderness: "Who can say what happens when we are remembered?"
Available on The Week Bookshop
Stone Yard Devotional
Charlotte Wood, 2024
Stranded in middle-age, a woman returns to the place in which she grew up to join a small convent. This beautifully modulated book is set against the pandemic and the climate crisis. It explores the intimacy of living in intense proximity with an almost miraculous sensitivity.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Mountainhead: Jesse Armstrong's tech bro satire sparkles with 'weapons-grade zingers'
The Week Recommends The Succession creator's first feature film lacks the hit TV show's 'dramatic richness' – but makes for a horribly gripping watch
-
Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists – a 'riveting' exhibition
The Week Recommends Pallant House exhibition offers fascinating instances of painterly reciprocity
-
Geoff Dyer shares his favourite books on war
The Week Recommends Out of Sheer Rage author chooses works by Martha Gellhorn, Michael Herr and Dexter Filkins
-
Mountainhead: Jesse Armstrong's tech bro satire sparkles with 'weapons-grade zingers'
The Week Recommends The Succession creator's first feature film lacks the hit TV show's 'dramatic richness' – but makes for a horribly gripping watch
-
Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists – a 'riveting' exhibition
The Week Recommends Pallant House exhibition offers fascinating instances of painterly reciprocity
-
Geoff Dyer shares his favourite books on war
The Week Recommends Out of Sheer Rage author chooses works by Martha Gellhorn, Michael Herr and Dexter Filkins
-
10 great gifts to give dear old dad this Father's Day
The Week Recommends Make his day with a thoughtful present
-
6 sun-drenched homes by the sea
Feature Featuring a large patio overlooking the ocean in Laguna Beach and a marble rainfall shower in Norwalk
-
Garsington Opera opens its summer festival with two 'very different productions'
The Week Recommends A 'fabulous' new staging of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades and Donizetti's fake-love-potion comedy L'elisir d'amore
-
The Rehearsal series two: Nathan Fielder's docu-comedy is 'laugh-out-loud funny'
The Week Recommends Television's 'great illusionist' has turned his attention to commercial airline safety
-
The Ballad of Wallis Island: bittersweet British comedy is a 'delight'
The Week Recommends A reclusive millionaire lures his favourite folk duo to an island for an 'awkward reunion'