I found being a Booker judge hugely rewarding. All the works on our shortlist will change how you see the world

• This year’s Booker prize shortlist

As a Booker judge, I think I have worked harder than I have ever done before. Reading 163 novels in six months, making careful assessments, being ready to argue for your judgment, going back to check you haven’t got it wrong … in some ways it took more energy than actually writing a book. But it was also hugely rewarding and fun. I shall never forget the discussions in our regular judging meetings, and the pleasure of discovering how we had sometimes reached almost exactly the same view of a book, and sometimes dramatically diverged. There were no big newsworthy squabbles, but a lot of discussion, a lot of listening and re-reading.

When each new batch of 30 or so novels arrived at home, through the spring, I plunged in and picked them out at random (only occasionally cheating by selecting a slim volume when I felt I needed to get my total up!) But so that you have more to go on, here is a quick guide to each of the books on the shortlist – in strictly alphabetical order.

This week, as the war in Gaza approaches its fourth year, the Guardian follows five ordinary Palestinians as they go about their lives. Each tells the story of their day, revealing the terrible toll of the conflict. Ramadan lives in a tent on the beach and works to support his family

As the war in Gaza approaches its fourth year, this week, the Guardian follows five ordinary Palestinians as they go about their lives. Each will tell the story of their day, revealing the terrible toll of the ongoing conflict.

The tent is pitched on a platform set in the sloping sand dunes, above a long expanse of golden coastline. Rats have chewed holes in its canvas sides, and tendrils of pale sand blow in through the gaps. Inside, on the torn mattress he shares with his siblings, 12-year-old Ramadan Ghaban blinks the sleep from his eyes. The sun has just risen but it is already hot.

I wake up every morning at 6.30am. Sometimes, the heat wakes me up, and sometimes it is the sound of the birds, which are everywhere because we live near the sea.

Amid genuinely touching passages about his sister, the earl can’t help but put himself and his grievances centre stage

Charles Spencer’s Swan Song, a memoir of his relationship with his sister, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, is a fascinating document that tells us a little about Diana and a great deal about Charles Spencer – perhaps more than we needed to know. If that sounds snarky, after 400 pages of score settling, chest thumping, wild indiscretion and some truly touching passages about his late sister, the reader is left with a head-spinning story of the world that created Diana and a certain sourness at the manner in which it is told.

Let’s start with the headlines in last week’s Daily Mail, the newspaper to whom Spencer sold serialisation of a book which includes a line describing tabloid journalists as “those who inhabit the murky swamps of malevolence, and who need to suck their victims dry of their souls”. Perhaps he meant a different set of hacks. Anyway the top line in the Mail was that, shortly after Diana’s death, King Charles insulted her in a phone call to Spencer: “‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough.’” Your take on this quote will likely dictate how you receive the book, and here’s mine: I’m willing to believe the king behaved badly, but “hissed” is a red flag, one of those embellishments, like “snarled” or “flounced”, that writers tend to use to make those they’re writing about appear worse. Spencer, always the injured party, has so many axes grinding away in this book that at times it’s impossible to hear what he’s saying.

In her new book, The Case For Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out, Lindsay Crouse discusses the costs and traps of never giving up – and how she set herself free

Lindsay Crouse used to define herself as not a quitter.

She went to Harvard University, where she learned to become even more high-achieving and ambitious, then landed an assistant job at the New York Times and worked her way up to become an opinion writer and producer. On the weekends, Crouse ran marathons and did endurance sports, clocking new personal bests throughout her thirties.

The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out by Lindsay Crouse is out now

Our cartoonist on Manchester United’s billionaire joint-owner showing a startling lack of self-awareness

• Buy a cartoon | Some of David’s favourite works

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

In more than two decades in the Prison Service, Pia Sinha gained a reputation as a fixer. Now, as head of the Prison Reform Trust, she’s sounding the alarm about overcrowding and other problems

Pia Sinha has led the Prison Reform Trust since 2023. In that time, she has seen a Conservative government finally admit to an overcrowding crisis that had tipped over the edge. (It was in October 2023 that the early release scheme was devised; by May 2024, the Tories had also launched Operation Safeguard, using police cells as temporary housing.) She’s watched a change of government, then a change of prime minister, then Andy Burnham instantly assailed by negative headlines as the consequences of that early release scheme unfolded: prisoners had to actually be released early. “We’re a bit concerned about how [Burnham] has handled it,” she says, in the trust’s scruffy, un-corporate offices in central London, “but that’s in the knowledge that he had a bit of a hospital pass.”

To recap on Burnham’s handling: when he came in in July, he paused the scheme for an urgent review; in August he announced a series of exclusions, further crimes for which people couldn’t be released early, including manslaughter and death by dangerous driving. That solved an immediate problem, that the killers of PC Andrew Harper would otherwise have been released, but had the knock-on effect of reducing the numbers expected to be released by about a quarter. The conversation Sinha wants to have is what prison overcrowding looks like, what it does to prisoners and staff – and what it means for society.

US president says British PM has a ‘lot of assets on his side’ as pair meet at UN in New York

Donald Trump has praised Andy Burnham as a “natural businessperson” and said the UK was “more up” than under Keir Starmer. But he berated the UK for its decision to give up the Chagos Islands.

In their first face-to-face meeting, Trump gave a warm assessment of the relationship, saying he thought Burnham had a “lot of assets on his side” and would be a “great prime minister”, adding: “We talked about everything from Rolls-Royce to energy to immigration – we covered a lot.”

Counter-terrorism police say ‘long-running investigation’ disrupted alleged plot days after two men arrested on eve of the holy day Yom Kippur

Police believe they have stopped an imminent plot to attack Jewish communities in the Manchester area.

The announcement on Tuesday follows the arrest of two men on Sunday at 2.45pm in Manchester and comes during the Jewish holy month.

Charity’s head coach ‘shocked’ after Sunderland council leader says it will not support ‘politically charged’ groups

Anti-racism education in some schools will be scrapped after a city council now led by Reform UK ended its 30-year support for the charity Show Racism the Red Card.

Announcing the decision last week, the Reform leader of Sunderland city council, Christopher Eynon, said it would no longer support “politically charged organisations with an agenda”.

Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman delisted in what Ireland’s EU presidency calls ‘a difficult compromise’ for the bloc

The EU has agreed to remove two Russian billionaires, Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, from its sanctions list, while extending restrictions on nearly 3,000 individuals and companies accused of supporting the war on Ukraine for the next three years.

With an end-of-Tuesday deadline looming to preserve the Russia blacklist, the EU’s 27 member states found a compromise that meant delisting the two oligarchs in spite of very few countries wanting this outcome. EU sanctions have to be approved unanimously.