What unites the books on the shortlist for this year’s International Booker prize? Brevity, for one thing: five of the six are under 200 pages, and half barely pass 100. They are works of precision and idiosyncrasy that don’t need space to make a big impression. Themes are both timely – AI, the migration crisis – and evergreen: middle-class ennui; the place of women in society. And for the second consecutive year, every book comes from an independent publisher, with four from tiny micropresses. Ahead of the winner announcement on 20 May, here’s our verdict on the shortlist.
Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume, Book I (Faber, £12.99; translated by Barbara J Haveland) is easiest to introduce through the film Groundhog Day: its heroine, Danish antiquarian book dealer Tara Selter, is stuck in time. “It is the 18th of November,” she writes. “I have got used to that thought.” Each time she wakes up, it’s the same day again, same weather, same people passing the window.
