LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025

From the author of Assembly – A SPECTATOR, BBC AND DAZED BOOK OF THE YEAR

'An instant classic.' ELLE
'Utterly phenomenal.' ELIZABETH DAY
'Smart, twisty and original.' DAVID NICHOLLS
‘A sharp, clever take on contemporary culture.’ DAILY MAIL
‘In a class of her own.’ FINANCIAL TIMES

On an abandoned Yorkshire farm, a group of hippie-anarchists have taken up residence to build a new society. When their leader is brutally bludgeoned with a solid gold bar, an ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth behind the attack. The longread exposé she writes goes viral – but is there more to the story than meets the eye?

Universality unravels the messy aftermath of that exposé through the perspective of each of the mystery’s key players: a self-pitying banker, a columnist with secrets, a cult leader with dreams, and a fugitive with nothing left to lose…

The follow-up to Natasha Brown’s Assembly is a twisty, slippery story of media, class, power and truth. Cutting through the noise, it reveals British society today for what it is.

‘A searing, state-of-the-nation novel.’ STYLIST
‘Confirms Natasha Brown as a major talent.’ OBSERVER
'A brilliant, unusual social x-ray of modern Britain.' ANDREW O'HAGAN
‘It is impossible to not get utterly sucked in.’ JENNY MUSTARD
‘One of the most intelligent voices writing today.’ GUARDIAN
‘Original, vital, and unputdownable.’ TESS GUNTY
‘Brown is an astute political observer, easily dismembering cancel culture and our media circus.’ NEW STATESMAN

Malavika Kannan establishes herself as an inimitable voice of Gen Z in this piercing coming-of-age debut novel.

Which comes first: experience or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on campus for her first year at Stanford. A burnt-out youth climate activist, she used to want to save the world, but now she just wants to have gay sex. Her plan is set—she’s going to leave behind the strict trappings of her Indian American childhood in Florida, study literature, experiment with love, and write all about it. Within a few months, she makes her first best friend, falls in love with her situationship, and promptly gets her heart broken.

What is not a part of Rishi’s plan is the onset of the COVID pandemic. As the outside world becomes a terrifying place, she increasingly finds solace in the friendships she’s made. Instead of virtual college, however, Rishi and her classmates join a farm collective, where their political discussions and growing disillusionment collide with sexual tension and responsibility. It’s only when those relationships start fracturing under the stress of careless decisions, unrequited crushes, jealousies, and, yes, unprecedented times, that Rishi begins to question her own story.

Unprecedented Times captures the beauty, humor, pain, and straight-up chaos that exist in relationships between best friends and lovers, mothers and daughters, and between storytellers and themselves. Malavika Kannan’s fresh, arresting novel is a testament to the power of self-narrative for Gen Z American women: of writing oneself into existence where no previous script exists.

THE EXTRAORDINARY LOST NOVEL FROM THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA AND ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

Sitting alone, overlooking the still and blue lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach surveys the men of the hotel bar. She is happily married and has no reason to escape the world she has made with her husband and children. And yet, every August, she travels here to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover.

Amid sultry days and tropical downpours, lotharios and conmen, Ana journeys further each year into the hinterland of her desire, and the fear that sits quietly at her heart.

Constantly surprising and wonderfully sensual, Until August is a profound meditation on freedom, regret, and the mysteries of love, from one of the greatest writers the world has ever known.

‘I read it straight through in one sitting, then got up the next day and did it again’ The Times

‘Sunny, sultry, even tipsy, but with a genuine sting’ Guardian

‘One of the greatest visionary writers – and one of my favourites from the time I was young’ Barack Obama

The rivetingly tense and timely conclusion to the Arkady Renko series – an iconic character from a titan of the political crime thriller genre.

When Arkady Renko is charged with investigating the murder of Alexei Kazasky, the Deputy Minister of Defence, he knows he has to tread carefully. Alexei Kazasky is a high-profile politician and has a complicated relationship with Putin. This investigation clearly has Kremlin approval, but, as with everything in Russia, things are not always what they seem.

Already preoccupied with his developing Parkinson’s, Arkady finds he has more to worry about. The war in Ukraine is gaining momentum, and his adopted son Zhenya has become involved with the Black Army, a Russo-Ukrainian group of hacktivists. Moreover, as Arkady digs deeper into Kazasky’s murder, he realizes that the man’s death may have been more politically motivated than he first assumed.

Now it seems that the people behind the killing have him firmly in their crosshairs – but this time Arkady’s life is not the only one on the line.

PRAISE FOR MARTIN CRUZ SMITH:

'Does more on a page than most writers manage in a chapter. He is unique and irreplaceable' MICK HERRON
'Among the first of a new generation of writers who made thrillers literary' GUARDIAN
'One of those writers that anyone who is serious about their craft views with respect bordering on awe' VAL McDERMID
'The undisputed master of the political crime thriller' ABIR MUKHERJEE
'One of the finest writers of our age' CHARLOTTE PHILBY

'Vivid, beguiling and needle-sharp. An unmissable literary thriller' Lucy Rose

'Rich and evocative, slippery and strange. I was hooked from the very first page' Chloë Ashby

What happens when the missing don't want to be found?

One morning, a teacher vanishes into the woods. As whispers fill her classroom, she melts into a shadowy wilderness, where the air hums with ancient birdsong and a blanket of moss covers her tracks.

Back in town, the mystery deepens. Who is Silvia really? An inscrutable misfit without a husband, devoted to her students until tragedy strikes. When a young boy stumbles upon her hiding place, it seems the search may be over. But is Silvia ready to return?

'Satisfying and deeply felt' Irish Times

'Mysterious and elegant' Veronica Raimo

'A strong debut by an emerging novelist and a loving work of restitution' TLS

'Moving and thought-provoking' Glamour Magazine

'One of Italy's most exciting new feminist authors' Service95

'Beautiful. . . a rare study of communal grief' Telegraph

'A book full of upended expectations' Guardian

ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION FINALIST 2026
A 2026 BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN THE OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES AND NEW STATESMAN

'A miracle' SALMAN RUSHDIE
'Captivating, gripped me from the first page' ELIF SHAFAK
'An unflinching, violent storm of a novel' TASH AW
'Profound . . . Anam's best work yet' Financial Times
'Unwaveringly political and unflinchingly forthright' Guardian
'A dark, brazen fairytale' LEILA ABOULELA
'Part holy legend, part undeniable, illuminating prophecy of how we will overcome' V.V. GANESHANANTHAN

Any moment now, we would grow up, and we would become them, waking late and hungry and with a job that had no name

On a desolate, sinking island, a group of children witness their mothers living lives of cruelty and servitude.

Bought and sold by Amma, the sadistic madam who was once herself sold into slavery, the women have learned to accept their fate. Yet their children weave fantastic tales of escape, imagining that someday they will leave the island and enjoy a life of freedom.

When Kusum Khan, a young, educated woman from the city, is forcibly brought to the island, she too is subjected to Amma's violent induction. Yet Kusum refuses to yield, and soon the collective complacency of her fellow prisoners turns into ferocity and defiance. Together, they begin a rebellion that will upend their island, their world and the very order of things.

An earth-shattering drama of resistance and female power, Uprising gives voice to the silenced through the story of a revolution no one saw coming.

Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. And through their artwork, he got to know their country, too: from the translucent churches of Pieter Saenredam to Paulus Potter’s muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch’s cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael’s tragic trees.

Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was. Why do we make art? What even is art, anyway—and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail? Is art a consolation—or a mortal danger?

The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. This is Holland and its great artists as we’ve never seen them before. And it’s a sumptuously illustrated, highly personal coming-of-age-story, twenty years in the making: a revealing self-portrait by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.