The Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize celebrate the best in English-language fiction. The organization recently revealed the Booker Prize 2025 judging panel which includes authors Roddy Doyle (1993 Booker Prize winner for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha); two Booker Prize-longlisted novelists Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (A Spell of Good Things) and Kiley Reid (Such a Fun Age); English writer and literary critic Chris Power; and American actress Sarah Jessica Parker (And Just Like That, Sex and the City), who is the founder of the literary imprint, SJP Lit.
Parker admitted to The New York Times that the opportunity to judge The Booker Prize is “very daunting,” especially as a non-academic who’s without a college degree.
She said: “I think of judges as academics, learned, experienced in ways I’m just not. I didn’t pursue higher education. I don’t have any degrees. I separate my devotion to reading from those who can talk about it, criticize it, make judgments, have feelings that are worthy of public discourse. All those ideas seem anathema to my relationship to books. Even when I went into publishing, I felt very nervous about people taking me seriously. I felt like an interloper, and that I was constantly in a position of having to prove myself. So to be a judge on the Booker, which is the greatest literary award bestowed — it felt very daunting.”
Parker recently revealed what she’s reading with the packed suitcase photo below. The star, whose husband Matthew Broderick famously didn’t love school either, wrote: “Gold bullion. Please don’t lose my suitcase!!!! I can get toothpaste and moisturizer anywhere…X, SJ.”
Parker’s fans are impressed with the books she has chosen to read and the quantity. When one asked, “how long are you away? I love this,” Parker replied: “8 or 9 days. The book pile is ambitious! X.”
Note: In addition to international recognition and with it a big bump in book sales, the Booker Prize winner receives £50,000 (approximately $62,000 USD).
The winner of the 2024 Booker Award was Orbital by English writer Samantha Harvey. The novel, which was published by Jonathan Cape in the UK and by Grove Atlantic in the US, follows six fictional astronauts over 24 hours on an orbiting space station.
