Unabridged: Behind the Booker Prize with Kiley Reid
The Stacks
Traci Thomas
4.8 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
*This is a teaser for this Patreon and Substack-only bonus episode, click here to listen to the full episode*
In this bonus episode, I chat with author Kiley Reid for the inside scoop on the Booker Prize, an annual literary award given to the best fiction book written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. As a 2025 judge—and the author of a 2020 Booker Prize-longlisted book—Kiley offers insider knowledge on everything from what makes a "Booker book" to the process of narrowing down the list from 153 titles to one winner.
You can find links to everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks Website: https://www.thestackspodcast.com/unabridged/2025/10/24/tsu-52-kiley-reid
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everybody, it's me, Tracy Thomas, host of the Stacks, and I'm here with another bonus episode |
| 0:05.1 | of the Stacks Unabridge. That is our podcast exclusively for members of the Stacks Pack on |
| 0:11.4 | Patreon and subscribers to my newsletter on Substack, called Unstacked. If you have ever wondered how |
| 0:18.7 | a book prize is decided, today's episode is for you. I am joined by |
| 0:24.0 | Kylie Reid, who is one of five judges for this year's Booker Prize, which is a UK-based |
| 0:30.7 | literary prize, which honors books from English-speaking countries. This year's prize will be awarded on November 5th, and the |
| 0:39.5 | booker list is down to a six-book shortlist. Today, Kylie and I talk all about the nerdy process |
| 0:46.7 | of getting 153 books down to one. I asked her about the logistics of fighting between the judges, |
| 0:55.2 | how she's reading 153 books in about six months, and why the Booker Prize asks their judges to read each of |
| 1:01.3 | the shortlisted books three times. If you're listening to this episode and it cuts out after |
| 1:06.7 | about 10 to 15 minutes, that means you are not a paid subscriber on Patreon or substack. |
| 1:11.7 | If you want to hear the whole episode, you should definitely do that. What do you get besides |
| 1:17.1 | this episode? You get all of our bonus episodes. You get access to our virtual book club, |
| 1:21.8 | to our Discord channel, to all of my hot takes on pop culture. Plus, you get to know that by |
| 1:27.1 | becoming a paid subscriber, |
| 1:28.3 | you make it possible for me to make the stacks and everything else I do free to all. |
| 1:33.9 | Head to patreon.com slash the stacks to join the stacks pack and go to Tracythomas. |
| 1:38.0 | com to subscribe to my newsletter. |
| 1:41.3 | All right. |
| 1:42.1 | Now it is time for my conversation with Kylie Reid. |
| 1:56.8 | All right, everybody, I'm so excited for this episode of the Stacks Unabridged. We are talking book prize. Not just any book prize. We are talking Booker Prize with a Booker Prize judge from this year's prize. Kylie, welcome back. |
| 2:16.1 | It's really great to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited. |
... |
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