It was on a very wet night in November that Jennifer Barnett and I, both public librarians working in Essex, set off from our London hotel, dressed in all our finery, to the 2025 Booker Prize Ceremony at Old Billingsgate. The invitation to attend this prestigious event, including accommodation and travel, as well as a copy of each longlisted title, was generously gifted to us as a prize for winning that year’s Booker Prize Display Competition.
The Booker Prize Foundation, in partnership with The Reading Agency, run this competition annually. It is open to all public libraries in the UK, and involves creating a library display, using the Booker Prize resources e.g. posters, shelf talkers, bookmarks and digital assets, that will engage library users with the 13 longlisted titles, otherwise known as the ‘Booker Dozen’.
Displays are my ‘library catnip’, and I love using my creativity to promote and highlight books and reading experiences. In recent years, I have found myself connecting with books and online reading communities such as BookTube and BookTok, and so I based my display on the Instagram reading community of Bookstagram. Using a pink, purple and yellow colour palette, I created a ‘Book(er)-stagram’ display, including Insta mobile pages for each book, with book covers, a one-line summary and all related social media tags and hashtags. We didn’t have all 13 longlisted titles in stock, so I added past winners and other books written by the longlisted authors. I located the display in our ‘Express Zone’, situated just beyond the entrance to the library, where it would achieve maximum visibility. We are, in many ways, a commuter town, and so often people just like to ‘grab and go’. The Insta-font drew people to the display, inviting them to talk to us about the books and share our predictions for the winners.
Arriving at the ceremony, I spotted my first literary celebrity standing just outside. I immediately recognised him as the author of my most favourite work of adult fiction EVER! Shuggie Bain is not only a Booker Prize winning book, one that I read annually, but he is also a young man who has never left my heart! Whilst I dearly wanted the chance to speak with Douglas about Shuggie, Jennifer and I had decided that "papping” bookish celebs would not be cool, and my heart was still racing too fast to speak.
The atmosphere was fizzing with excitement, and we were quite overwhelmed as we watched the many famous faces we had read about or seen on TV take their turn to be interviewed on the red carpet. Highlights included Bernadine Evaristo, Ruth Jones and Kit de Waal. We also spotted Sarah Jessica Parker and Roddy Doyle, Charles Dance as well as Jason Isaacs (a very firm highlight for Jennifer!).
Inside, Old Billingsgate is an edgy blend of Victorian architecture and cast ironwork. As we enjoyed delicious canapés and actual fizz, a towering ‘Iris’—the stunningly beautiful Booker Prize trophy, designed in 1969 by Jan Pieńkowski (of Meg and Mog) and named through a reader poll after the novelist Iris Murdoch—stood elegantly above us, bringing subtle glamour to the evening.
As we took our places for dinner, we met the other guests at our table who would share this experience with us. They included the winner of the parallel Booker Prize Display Competition for independent bookshops, and the lovely Kathryn and Caitlin from The Reading Agency. The food was exceptional, delicious and piping hot. This was no mean feat, considering the large number of guests, but we very much appreciated it.
The ceremony was a true celebration of books and literature, with BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, hosted by Samira Ahmed, broadcasting live from the stage. Highlights included a Q&A about the judging process with Sarah Jessica Parker and Kiley Reid, filmed readings of the shortlisted titles – Katherine Parkinson’s excerpt from Audition by Katie Kitamura stood out as my favourite – and last year’s winner Samantha Harvey encouraging those who don’t win to “look forward to a wonderful year of free writing” while advising her successor to “buckle up and hire a good accountant.”
A particularly meaningful highlight of the ceremony was an address given by acclaimed author Penelope Lively. Penelope won the Booker Prize in 1987 for her novel, ‘Moon Tiger. Prior to winning the Booker Prize, Penelope won the Carnegie Medal in 1973, for her hauntingly mischievous novel, ‘The Ghost of Thomas Kempe. As a Carnegie Medals Judge (2024/2027), I strongly believe in the transformative power of literature for children and young people and so I was even more delighted to discover the details of the new Children’s Booker Prize.
The prize will be awarded annually from 2027, and supported by AKO Foundation, with an equivalent prize pot of £50,000, and aims to champion the best contemporary fiction for children aged 8-12. Alongside the prize, the Booker Foundation plans to gift at least 30,000 copies of the shortlisted and winning books, to ensure that more children can access outstanding literature. A real gesture of commitment, especially at a time when children’s enjoyment of reading is at a 20-year low . In her keynote speech Penelope quoted the poet WH Auden, who said “there are good books that are only for adults, because their comprehension presupposes adult experiences, but there are no good books that are only for children”, a sentiment I wholeheartedly share. She expanded on how writing for children was a “particular endeavour…that takes you back to where you once were yourself but endowed with the magical power of adult expression”. Penelope’s keynote address, delivered on such a prestigious and influential platform, conveyed the important message that reading and literacy for children and young people is not only important from an academic perspective, but is also of essential cultural value.
As chair of the judges, it then fell to Roddy Doyle, with his erudite insight and warm wit, to announce Flesh by David Szalay as the 2025 Booker Prize winner. David was clearly shell-shocked as he was led up to the podium to collect his Iris trophy. After thanking those that had supported him in getting ‘Flesh’ to publication, he reflected on the value risk, both in terms of the risk’s writers take and the ones taken by publishers when selecting authors and stories to work with. Szalay shared that he had abandoned the 80,000-word novel he had been working on or, “piece of unsuccessful writing” to focus on Flesh and struggled with huge personal pressure to complete it. He thanked Oshoya, his wife, the “only other witness to this”, and said she would be “equally bewildered that those rather bleak times and this glittering evening, are somehow part of the same process and the same experience.”
In his speech, Roddy Doyle compared the re-reading of books as a judge to listening to a great album on repeat. Words, phrases, harmony and dissonance all previously unheard, start to find their way to the reader. I reflected on how this chimed with my own experience as a Carnegie Medals judge and instantly added ‘Flesh’ to my TBR-R list.
Another bonus of the evening was when Kathryn from The Reading Agency kindly introduced me to Simon Savidge from Savidge Reads. I’ve followed Simon since his blogging days in the early 2000’s and am always willing to give any book he recommends a go! I congratulated him on becoming an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and we chatted about his commitment to and enthusiasm for public libraries. Obviously, I had to ask him about the wonderful Louise Savidge Muses and what it was like working with your equally bookish mum. His face lit up with a smile, making it obvious that their bond—seen as banter and giggles on screen—is genuine and not just for the phone camera they record on.
Jennifer and I spent the rest of the evening people-watching and having our photographs taken on the red carpet, with Iris, and with the large title banner for Flesh. Alongside our individual table cards and menus, the a-may-zing Booker Prize tote filled with treats from Fortnum & Mason and a shortlisted title, these photos are now mementos of a truly special evening of pure bookish joy! We are both thankful to The Booker Prize Foundation and The Reading Agency for this opportunity and would definitely encourage others to get display-creative – your future self will be so pleased you did!
Get involved
If you would like to take part in this year’s International Booker Prize display competition, and be in with a chance to win tickets to the ceremony in May, please order a pack from our shop and email a photo of your display to campaigns@readingagency.org.uk.
