Me+Em and Booker Prize Foundation launch year of reading lists
Me+Em, the fashion brand, has teamed with the Booker Prize Foundation, which administers the Booker Prize and International Booker Prize for fiction, on a year-long partnership. The two will co-curate four themed reading lists over the next 12 months. The plan was detailed by WWD on 7 October 2026.
The lists draw on a back catalogue. More than 700 works of fiction have been nominated for the two prizes over the last 57 years, and the selections come from that archive. A themed list means the books are grouped by idea or season rather than by prize year or winner.
Autumn comes first. The inaugural Me+Em x Booker Prizes list is themed around autumn. It contains four titles: 'Hotel du Lac' by Anita Brookner, 'Loitering with Intent' by Muriel Spark, 'The Sea, the Sea' by Iris Murdoch and 'Orbital' by Samantha Harvey.
Giving is next. A second list focused on books that explore the concept of giving will launch in early December. That places it in the run-up to the end-of-year holidays, when many readers buy books as gifts.
The books will be available to buy from BookKind, the bookseller handling the orders. BookKind donates 10 percent of every order value to its charity partners, which include the Booker Prize Foundation. Me+Em was founded by Clare Hornby, who serves as its chief executive.
Separately, the Booker Prize Foundation notes on its website a new creative writing scholarship with UEA, the university partner. The award is named for Eve Smith, its former company secretary. Writers Kazuo Ishiguro, Anne Enright and Ben Okri have marked the scholarship in her honour, according to the same Foundation site.
Co-curation here means staff from both organisations choose the books together. Four lists in 12 months points to roughly one per season. Each list gives shoppers a short, ready-made set to read or give, without sorting through the full 57-year archive.
For fans, this means fashion and fiction share the same shelf for a year. The hook is simple. A short list for a cold evening. The December list on giving will test whether that formula also works for gifts.
