The Guardian View on the 2025 Boker Award: Bring Bingo luxury to Booktok generation | Editorial

WEtham heard her reputation in filling and elitism, a Booker Prize may seem inappropriate for the social media era. In the eighties of the last century, when the quarrels and affairs of the book topped the headlines, it was the winning ceremony It was broadcast by BBC. The Academy Awards were in the world. Today, the idea of ​​setting it to see the literature that suits dinner at dinner in Gildahal in London, London. But the most famous literary award in the United Kingdom still needs to reach a large audience as possible. How to sell “Luxury Bengo”Julian Barnes also called it, to the Booktok generation?

It is no longer enough to tell people what they should read. Readers expect to be part of the conversation – to be in the Bingo Hall. The brief list of this year was announced directly by the former President and Bozewinner Roddy Doyle at an event at the SouthBank Center in London, with a chat behind the scenes from Plate. The event was also preserved.

However, readers will not be allowed to enter the arbitration room any time soon. “Michael Fryen: Fad the curiosity”; “Melvyn Bragg: On the name of only one defect, and how much it is written greatly,” the enormous Rebecca West, one of the first judges, wrote in her notes. There is a reason because the meetings are confidential. But West has certainly agreed to a significantly rich and varied brief list, which includes the unit in Sonia and sunny by the former winner of Bokier Kiran Desai, the body by David Sazazai, the land in the winter by Andrew Miller (both the previous brief list), the rest of our lives by Ben Marcovts, by Susan Choi, and the fun of Katy Katati. It does not exist for the first time.

However, a new award will be presented by a new award on the anniversary of the Wolf Hall’s book, Hillary Manite. In a certain mark on a changing cultural scene, Another prize It was also launched last week to learn about the books of books, with addresses and judgment by members of the online book community. Who needs expert judges in the era of the owners of the office? There is room for both. Away from abandoning Bokerer, readers were attracted online towards the award as a discussion center through the growing Tiktok club and the developing digital book Club.

Amid the terrible reports of a decrease in reading for pleasure (and literacy), a crisis in literary festivals and fears of a state of diminishing the novel, this is all a reason to celebrate. Booker is still a cultural institution that can be calculated, not only in Britain but globally. In the wake of recent crowds such as Shoji Payne from Douglas Stewart and the administrative last year by Samantha Harvey (the fastest winner in the history of Baker), the award finally found a road between noon and popularity.

With such a strong brief list, the winner 2025 is another blow. If Orbital is also one of the shortest winners ever, this year should be calmed up of concerns about fading attention with one of the titles of up to 700 huge pages. As stories about how to live with – love – other people, all the six novels are “brilliantly human”, as Doyle said, a reminder of the threat to creativity of artificial intelligence. Reading may be a solitary pursuit, but the common experience of the novel can bring us together in an intimate intimate way. Awards provide a meeting place. At a time when division, we can relax in the so -called “ayòbámi adébáyò”, which is called “the group of imagination.”