My Friends
My Friends by Hisham Matar is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including The Booker Prize, for a Consensus Score of 16 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedMatar, writing again in the shadow of Libyan political violence that has shaped all his work, uses the decades-long friendship of two exiled dissidents to ask what endures once the revolution that bonded them has passed into history. Critics have responded to how unhurried the book is, willing to dwell in memory and small domestic detail rather than rushing toward political climax.
In the press
“My Friends captures the Arab Spring as well as any novel I have read... a great novel of exile”
Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal“Matar's most touching and provoking creation: out of time, but of our time”
James Wood, The New Yorker
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Booker Prize | 0.95 | 0.70 | 1.10× | 0.73 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.73 → 16 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is My Friends on?
My Friends appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including The Booker Prize.
What is its Consensus Score?
My Friends has a Consensus Score of 16 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.