Keefe leads bookmakers' odds for 2026 Baillie Gifford Prize

Patrick Radden Keefe leads the betting for the 2026 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction at 9/4.

Bookmaker William Hill has priced all six books on the shortlist, the final six in contention for the annual award for non-fiction writing. Keefe's contender is London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City, and a Family's Search for Truth, according to Publishing Perspectives.

Close behind are Nicholas Boggs with Baldwin: A Love Story and Andrea Wulf with The Traveller, both at 3/1. Anand Gopal's Days of Love and Rage is priced at 5/1, while Edmund Richardson's Alexander: God, King, Man and Matthew Sweet's The Great Dictator are both at 6/1.

A win for Keefe would be historic. He previously won the prize in 2021 for Empire of Pain. A second win would make him the first author to take the Baillie Gifford Prize twice.

The stakes are clear. The winning author receives £50,000. The winner will be announced on November 4 at BMA House.

The six-book shortlist was drawn from more than 350 eligible books published between November 2025 and October 2026. That long trawl from manuscript to shelf is part of what makes prize season matter for publishers and bookshops, with a shortlisting often lifting sales and reorders.

The judging panel is chaired by broadcaster Kirsty Lang. She is joined by Bea Carvalho, Tiffany Jenkins, Sam Leith, Ravi Mattu and Elif Shafak.

For general readers, this means a compact field. Six titles, one winner, and less than three weeks until the decision.

The wider field was larger. The 2026 longlist comprised 13 authors, including Ben Macintyre and Charlotte Higgins, according to The Guardian. Recent winners of the prize include John Vaillant, Katherine Rundell, Patrick Radden Keefe and Craig Brown, according to The Guardian.

What makes this stand out is the bookmakers' verdict. Keefe is favourite, but two rivals sit only a step behind him at 3/1.