A 2022 Instagram comment got Sarah Jessica Parker on the Booker Prize jury

Sarah Jessica Parker has served as one of the judges of the prestigious Booker Prize in 2025. The actor, known for her love for literature and books became the first non-author to serve in the jury of the highly esteemed award.

Her journey to this point dates back to three years ago when she dropped a comment under a post on the official account of The Booker Prizes.

Sarah Jessica Parker's Instagram comment led her to become the first non-author to judge The Booker Prize

In 2022, The Booker Prizes Instagram page made a post with that years' judges asking them the hardest thing of being on the jury. All the judges said that the most challenging part is reading almost 170 books in just seven months.

Sarah Jessica Parker, a book enthusiast, commented under the post made three years ago, "Oh let me try!!!! X". It seems like the committee noticed her plea and granted her wish.

Sarah has stood by the world of books in whatever she can. She started her own imprint, SJP Lit and also had an imprint within Hogarth, a division of Penguin Random House known as SJP for Hogarth.

During an interview with The Booker Prizes, Sarah Jessica Parker was asked how the reading experience changes as one becomes a judge from a reader. The actor had said, "In the past, when I’ve been alone, reading, there can be kind of peripheral action going on around me that I integrated and didn’t mind. This kind of solitary reading, I think, on behalf of all the authors, deserves true isolation...Judging has been hugely helpful. When we gather for deliberations, I’m able to tackle the next batch with, not the influence so much of my fellow judges, but more the ways in which they’re experiencing books. Our differences in opinions are really important. They definitely move people and change people".

Sarah, like all other judges, had to read almost 170 books in seven months. When asked how she approached the "unique challenge", she said, "My approach has changed. With the first batch, I read at my more typical ‘civilian-reading-for-pleasure’ pace. What’s happened over time is that I have started to read with a different kind of energy, frankly".

Author David Szalay's book, Flesh won the 2025 Booker Prize.  

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