The Booker prize released its 2021 longlist on Tuesday, including Bookoccino staff favourites Rachel Cusk, Damon Galgut, Maggie Shipstead and Francis Spufford on a 13-strong list of titles vying for the shortlist, to be announced on 14th September. Conscious of the isolation that so many of us still find ourselves in, prize chair Maya Jasanoff emphasised that these books all in some way looked to the connections that run between us, from those that are ‘tiny and secluded to the unmeasurable expand of cyberspace’.  We think this is one of the best long-lists in years!

• A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam (available in August)
• Second Place, Rachel Cusk
• The Promise, Damon Galgut
• The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris 
• Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro
• An Island, Karen Jennings (available soon)
• A Town Called Solace, Mary Lawson 
• No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood 
• The Fortune Men, Nadifa Mohamed
• Bewilderment, Richard Powers (available in September)
• China Room, Sunjeev Sahota 
• Circle, Maggie Shipstead 
• Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford