India, Sept. 3 -- Gwendoline Riley's The Palm House is a silent presence among some of the big novels on the 2026 Booker longlist. It does not set a trend, nor is it the latest Bookstagram sensation. Still, it emerges as an honest work that presents life's everyday vagaries.

It begins with friends Edmund Putnam and Laura Miller enjoying a drink as sand from the Sahara and ashes from the forest fires in Spain and Portugal blow into England. While Laura, the narrator, is a freelance writer who once worked at a history magazine, Edmund has been at a popular London magazine for decades. Now, he too has decided to resign and become a freelancer. His decision stems from his dislikes of the magazine's new editor, someone who intends to transfor...