Seascraper
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including The Guardian, for a Consensus Score of 16 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedLonglisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, Wood's novel follows a young shrimper on the English coast weighing a chance at something larger against the pull of home and family obligation. Reviewers consistently praised how Wood renders manual labor, the mechanics of shrimping, the choreography of small daily tasks, with the same attentiveness other novelists reserve for interior monologue, turning routine work into the book's real subject rather than its backdrop. The dialogue drew more mixed notice, with at least one critic finding it occasionally tips into an overly quaint regional voice. But the consensus holds that Wood's real skill is compositional: making the ordinary legible as meaningful without over-explaining it.
In the press
“Wood transforms the quotidian into the poetic, making the exactitude of each task sing on the page.”
The Guardian
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 Guardian | 0.85 | 0.85 | 1.00× | 0.72 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.72 → 16 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is Seascraper on?
Seascraper appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including The Guardian.
What is its Consensus Score?
Seascraper has a Consensus Score of 16 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.