This year’s Booker longlist has been described as “an absolute gift for bookselling” and seems popular with critics and the book-buying public alike, which is excellent. I hope it’s going to be a vintage year. But still: it isn’t as long as our longlist.

This year, a mighty 174 books have been nominated for the Not the Booker prize. That’s an impressive indication of the scale of publishing in English-language fiction and of the enthusiasm you guys have for reading. But now, it’s time to start talking about how good some of these books are. To do that, we need to produce our shortlist.

The first part of that process is to whittle down 174 books to a far more manageable three, which we will then add to three more – one selected by last year’s judges and one from each of our two nominated book champions for this year, Storyhouse library in Chester and Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh.

And when I say “we”, I really mean “you”. This is part of the competition that you control, because it’s your vote that will help decide which three books go forward into the next round.

Voting is easy – or it will be if you read the following instructions carefully:

In order for your vote to be counted and comply with our all killer, no filler terms and conditions, you need to choose two books from the longlist below, from two different publishers, and accompany those choices with a short review of at least one of your chosen books. It would also be very helpful if you could include the word “vote”.

We’re hoping for a minimum of 100 words in the review. We won’t be counting all that carefully, as there are only so many hours in the day – but at the very least make it look like you care and please give us your honest feelings.

That’s it. As I say, it should be easy, but every year a few people get confused and we’re unable to count their votes. So please check your entry carefully to be certain that your voice is heard.

You’ve got just over one week. The next deadline is 23.59 BST on Monday 5 August 2019. Please make sure you nominate your favourite books before then – and feel free to tell all your friends to take part too. I’ll be back here on 6 August to post the results.

As is traditional, before we get to the list, I have to thank Tips, links and suggestions stalwart and all-round superstar Lisa Jones for her help in checking eligibility and titles. And as is usual, when you see the size of the list, you’ll understand why I’m so grateful for her spreadsheet skillz. Here it is:

Sulaiman Addonia - Silence Is My Mother Tongue (The Indigo Press)

Nina Allan - The Dollmaker (Quercus Books)

Eleanor Anstruther - A Perfect Explanation (Salt)

Louis Armand - GlassHouse (Equus Press)

Robbie Arnott - Flames (Atlantic Books)

Sefi Atta - The Bead Collector (Myriad Editions)

Kate Atkinson - Big Sky (Doubleday)

Mona Awad - Bunny (Head of Zeus)

Chandler Baker - Whisper Network (Sphere Publishing/Little, Brown)

JA Baker - The Woman at Number 19 (Bloodhound Books)

Jo Baker - The Body Lies (Doubleday)

Damian Barr - You Will Be Safe Here (Bloomsbury)

Kevin Barry - Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate)

Yvonne Battle-Felton - Remembered (Dialogue)

Laura Beatty - Lost Property (Atlantic Books)

Louise Beech - Call Me Star Girl (Orenda Books)

Lou Berney - November Road (Harper Collins)

Brian Bilston - Diary of a Somebody (Pan Macmillan)

Ben Borek - Sissy (Boiler House Press)

Oyinkan Braithwaite - My Sister, the Serial Killer (Atlantic Books)

Liam Brown - Skin (Legend Press)

Tanya Bullock - The Lonely Hearts Crime Club (Blackbird Digital Books)

Paul Burston - The Closer I Get (Orenda Books)

Season Butler – Cygnet (Dialogue)

Diana Cambridge - Don’t Think a Single Thought (Louise Walters Books)

West Camel - Attend (Orenda Books)

Edward Carey - Little (Gallic)

Candice Carty-Williams - Queenie (Orion)

Will Carver - Good Samaritans (Orenda Books)

Jeevani Charika - This Stolen Life (Hera)

Yangsze Choo - The Night Tiger (Quercus Books)

Tim Clare - The Ice House (Canongate)

Wendy Clarke - What She Saw (BookOuture)

Alice Clark-Platts - The Flower Girls (Bloomsbury)

Jonathan Coe - Middle England (Penguin)

Bridget Collins - The Binding (The Borough Press)

Sara Collins - The Confessions of Frannie Langton (Penguin)

Alys Conran - Dignity (Weidenfeld and Nicolson)

Andrew Cowan - Your Fault (Salt)

Peter Cowlam - Utopia (Centerhouse Press)

Conal Creedon - Begotten Not Made (Irishtown Press)

Trent Dalton - Boy Swallows Universe (4th Estate)

Gareth Davies - Humans, Being (Cinnamon Press)

Sarah Davis-Goff - Last Ones Left Alive (Tinder)

Chloe Daykin - Fire Girl, Forest Boy (Faber & Faber)

Will Dean - Red Snow (Oneworld Publications)

Tony Dickenson - Puffin Boy (Austin Macauley)

Patricia Dixon - Rosie and Ruby (Bombshell Books)

Elanor Dymott - Slack-Tide (Jonathan Cape)

Michelle Elvy - the everrumble (Ad Hoc Fiction)

Juliet Escoria - Juliet the Maniac (Melville House)

Bernardine Evaristo - Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton)

Ben Fergusson – An Honest Man (Little, Brown)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Little Boy (Faber & Faber)

Patrick Flanery - Night for Day (Atlantic Books)

CA Fletcher - A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World (Orbit Books)

Lucy Foley - The Hunting Party (Harper Collins)

Yara Rodrigues Fowler - Stubborn Archivist (Fleet)

Joanna Glen - The Other Half of Augusta Hope (The Borough Press)

Melanie Golding - Little Darlings (HQ)

Martin Goodman - J SS Bach (Wrecking Ball Press)

Anne Griffin - When All Is Said (Hodder and Stoughton)

Mark Haddon - The Porpoise (Chatto and Windus/Penguin)

Tessa Hadley - Late in the Day (Harper Collins)

Isabella Hammad - The Parisian (Jonathan Cape)

Lucie McKnight Hardy - Water Shall Refuse Them (Dead Ink Books)

SA Harris - Haverscroft (Salt)

Adrian Harvey - Time’s Tide (Urbane Publications)

Karen Havelin - Please Read This Leaflet Carefully (Dead Ink Books)

Natalie Haynes - A Thousand Ships (Pan Macmillan)

Judith Heneghan - Snegurochka (Salt)

Mick Herron - Joe Country (John Murray)

Rónán Hession - Leonard and Hungry Paul (Bluemoose Books)

SJI Holliday - The Lingering (Orenda Books)

Wayne Holloway - Bindlestiff (Influx)

Steve Hopstaken and Melissa Prusi - Stoker’s Wilde (Flame Tree Press)

Siri Hustvedt - Memories of the Future (Sceptre)

Dave Hutchinson - Europe at Dawn (Solaris)

Sandra Ireland - The Unmaking of Ellie Rook (Polygon)

Daniel James - The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas (Dead Ink Books)

Marlon James - Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Hamish Hamilton)

Sadie Jones - The Snakes (Chatto and Windus)

Sheena Kalayil - The Wild Wind (Polygon)

Panos Karnezis - We Are Made of Earth (Myriad)

Marianne Kavanagh - Disturbance (Hodder and Stoughton)

Joanna Kavenna - Zed (Faber & Faber)

David Keenan - For the Good Times (Faber & Faber)

Haroun Khan - The Study Circle (Dead Ink Books)

Raymond Khoury - The Ottoman Secret (Michael Joseph)

Jess Kidd - Things in Jars (Canongate)

Barbara Kingsolver - Unsheltered (Faber & Faber)

Margaret Kirk - What Lies Buried (Orion)

Helen Kitson - The Last Words of Madeleine Anderson (Louise Walters Books)

Joseph Knox - The Sleepwalker (Penguin)

Laura Laakso - Fallible Justice (Louise Walters Books)

Barbara Lamplugh - The Red Gene (Urbane Publications)

John Lanchester - The Wall (Faber & Faber)

James Lasdun - Victory (Jonathan Cape)

Devi S Laskar - The Atlas of Reds and Blues (Little, Brown)

Andrea Lawlor – Paul Takes the Form of a Moral Girl (Picador)

Gytha Lodge - She Lies in Wait (Michael Joseph)

Amy Lord - The Disappeared (Unbound)

Mary Loudon - My House Is Falling Down (Picador)

Marcus Low - Asylum (Legend Press)

Valeria Luiselli - Lost Children Archive (4th Estate)

Elizabeth Macneal - The Doll Factory (Picador)

Iain Maitland - Mr Todd’s Reckoning (Saraband)

Stephanie Marland - You Die Next (Orion)

Allan Martin - The Peat Dead (ThunderPoint Publishing)

Arkady Martine - A Memory Called Empire (Tor UK)

Ian McEwan - Machines Like Me (Jonathan Cape)

Patrick McGuinness - Throw Me to the Wolves (Bloomsbury)

Adrian McKinty - The Chain (Orion)

Dervla McTiernan - The Scholar (Sphere Publishing)

Virginia Moffatt - The Wave (Harper Collins)

Deborah Moggach - The Carer (Tinder)

Peter Money - Oh When The Saints (Liberties Press)

Ewan Morrison - Nina X (Little, Brown)

Helen Mort - Black Car Burning (Chatto and Windus)

Yelena Moskovich - Virtuoso (Serpents Tail)

Tim Murgatroyd - Pilgrim Tale (Cloud Lodge Books)

Donald S Murray - As the Women Lay Dreaming (Saraband)

Benjamin Myers - The Offing (Bloomsbury)

Elle Nash – Animals Eat Each Other (404 Ink)

Christopher New - Chinese Spring (Saraband)

Sandra Newman - The Heavens (Granta Books)

Chigozie Obioma - An Orchestra of Minorities (Little, Brown)

Billy O’Callaghan - My Coney Island Baby (Jonathan Cape)

Joseph O’Connor - Shadowplay (Harvill Secker)

Jacqueline O’Mahony - A River in the Trees (Quercus Books)

Orlando Ortega-Medina - The Death of Baseball (Cloud Lodge Books)

KJ Parker - Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (Orbit Books)

Tim Pears - The Redeemed (Bloomsbury)

Laura Pearson - Nobody’s Wife (Agora Books)

Shiromi Pinto - Plastic Emotions (Influx)

Max Porter - Lanny (Faber & Faber)

Joanne Ramos - The Farm (Bloomsbury)

Jane Rawson - From the Wreck (Picador)

Angela Readman - Something Like Breathing (And Other Stories)

Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones and the Six (Penguin)

Randy Ribay - Patron Saints of Nothing (Penguin)

Adam Roberts - The Black Prince (Unbound)

Johanna Robinson - Homing (Louise Walters Books)

Etaf Rum - A Woman Is No Man (HQ)

Adam Scovell - Mothlight (Influx)

Linda See - The Island of Sea Women (Simon and Schuster)

Adrian Selby - The Winter Road (Orbit Books)

Namwali Serpell - The Old Drift (Hogarth Press)

Diane Setterfield - Once Upon a River (Doubleday)

Elif Shafak - 10 Minutes 38 Seconds into this Strange World (Viking)

Deirdre Shanahan - Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind (Bluemoose Books)

Daniel Shand - Crocodile (Sandstone Press)

Laura Shepherd-Robinson - Blood & Sugar (Pan Macmillan)

Ali Smith - Spring (Hamish Hamilton)

Ben Smith - Doggerland (4th Estate)

Tabatha Stirling - Bitter Leaves (Unbound)

Tasha Suri - Empire of Sand (Orbit Books)

Peter Sutton - Seven Deadly Swords (Grimbold Books)

Tade Thompson - Rosewater Insurrection (Orbit Books)

Nicole Trope - The Boy in the Photo (BookOuture)

Alan Trotter - Muscle (Faber & Faber)

Paul Tudor Owen – The Weighing of the Heart (Obliterati Press)

Madhuri Vijay - The Far Field (Atlantic Books)

Ocean Vuong - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Jonathan Cape)

Chuck Wendig - Wanderers (Solaris)

David Wharton - Finer Things (Sandstone Press)

Liza Wieland - Paris, 7am (Simon and Schuster UK)

Will Wiles - Plume (4th Estate)

D Harlon Wilson - Natural Complexions (Equus Press)

Jeanette Winterson - Frankissstein: A Love Story (Jonathan Cape)

Naomi Wood - The Hiding Game (Picador)

Robert Woodshaw - The Iron Bird (Unbound)

Helen Irene Young - Breakfast in Bogotá (Unbound)