The Booker Prize is the “leading literary award in the English-speaking world,” or more succinctly, it is a prize that transforms the winner’s career.

Each year, a panel of judges reads hundreds of books in literary fiction, selecting a number to longlist based on literary excellence. Being longlisted for the Booker Prize alone garners a massive impact for authors. Sales jump significantly, there is typically increased interest in translated editions for international markets, plus more opportunities for further publications and speaking engagements, which increase an author’s exposure.

From the longlist, six books are shortlisted, and one is selected from the smaller pool as the annual winner. The impact of winning is significant – often called The Booker Prize Effect. According to The Booker Prize website, “2023’s winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, saw a 1500% increase in sales in the week following its win.”

In 2002, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the prestigious award and went on to sell millions of copies. Ultimately it was adapted to a film in 2012 and a stage play in 2019.

To kick off a reading journey into someone else’s shoes, to prompt a change in your worldview, and spark new ideas and opinions, check out our “shortlist” compilation of Booker Prize shortlisted novels that have been adapted for film or television below.

To see more, visit the Booker Prize website.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising to meet him – and encounters the complicit silences of a small community controlled by the Church.

Small Things Like These is a quick read that packs a formidable punch. These subtle but effective characters are written in beautiful prose, driving forward a story about power, family, and forgiveness.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Offred is a national resource. In the Republic of Gilead her viable ovaries make her a precious commodity, and the state allows her only one function: to breed. As a Handmaid she carries no name except her Master’s, for whose barren wife she must act as a surrogate.

The Handmaid’s Tale is powerfully relevant in today’s political climate. It reads less like science fiction and more like a prophecy – a story that creates a sense of unease and drives the need for change.

Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally (Schindler’s List in the United States)

In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist continually defies the SS and becomes a living legend to the Jews of Krakow. This is the story of Oskar Schindler, a womanizer and drinker who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, risking his life to protect beleaguered Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland.

This remarkable story has had a lasting impact internationally, for good reason.

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

24-year-old Eileen Dunlop is trapped between caring for her abusive, alcoholic father and working a dead-end job at a juvenile correctional facility in the claustrophobic suburbs of wintry New England. Eileen dreams of escape, but her life takes a sinister turn when she becomes obsessed with Rebecca Saint John, a glamorous new counsellor at the prison.

The eerie, uncomfortable, and violent atmosphere in Eileen is unlike any other psychological thriller, unraveling obsession and the darkness inside us all.

Room by Emma Donoghue

Five-year-old Jack has never been outside of the locked single room that he and his mother inhabit. Because it’s all he’s ever known, Jack believes that this is the only reality which exists. As the reasons for their captivity gradually become apparent, his mother cleverly plans a way for them to finally gain their freedom and introduce Jack to a life beyond their confined existence.

This dark and moving novel shows the bond between a mother and child, written from a child’s perspective with potent and effective confusion and innocence.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If King Henry VIII dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell, a political genius, a briber, a bully and a charmer. He has broken all the rules of a rigid society in his rise to power and is prepared to break some more.

Tudor England is explored to great lengths in current media, but none peel back the layers of history, individual agendas, and the overlapping politics of the era like Wolf Hall.