Posts from the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Sep 15

2023 Booker Longlist: This Other Eden by Paul Harding

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This Other Eden by Paul Harding is the next book up for our panel. This Other Eden is Harding’s 3rd book. His novel Tinkers, won the Pulitzer and PEN Prizes in 2010.

Synopsis taken from the Booker Prize website: Inspired by historical events, This Other Eden tells the story of Apple Island: an enclave off the coast of the United States where castaways – in flight from society and its judgment – have landed and built a home.

In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey arrives on the island with his Irish wife, Patience, to make a life together there. More than a century later, the Honeys’ descendants remain, alongside an eccentric, diverse band of neighbours.

Then comes the intrusion of ‘civilization’: officials determine to ‘cleanse’ the island. A missionary schoolteacher selects one light-skinned boy to save. The rest will succumb to the authorities’ institutions – or cast themselves on the waters in a new Noah’s Ark…

You can purchase a copy of the book here

Five of our panelists read and reviewed this novel. Keep reading to find out how we rated it.

Sep 14

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2023 Booker Longlist: All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

Next up is debut novel All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow. Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kent, and has extensive personal, professional and academic experience relating to autism.

Synopsis taken from Booker Prize website: Sunday Forrester does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly – her clever, headstrong daughter, now on the cusp of leaving home. 

Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a charming couple who move in next door and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday’s book. Soon they are in and out of each other’s homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted as never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo’s polish lies something else, something darker. For Sunday has precisely what Vita has always wanted for herself: a daughter of her own. 

You can purchase a copy of the book here

Keep reading to find out how our panellists rated this book.

Sep 12

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2023 Booker Longlist – Pearl by Siân Hughes

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Pearl by Siân Hughes is the next book on our list. Siân Hughes is a writer who grew up in a small village in Cheshire, England. Pearl is her debut novel and is set in the place where she grew up.

Synopsis taken from the Booker Prize website: Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love; the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood.

As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother’s disappearance and the secrets she’s sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called Pearl – and trusting in its promise of consolation – Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it, a task that she returns to over and over but somehow never manages to complete.

Tormented by an unmarked gravestone in an abandoned chapel and the tidal pull of the river, her childhood home begins to crumble as the past leads her down a path of self-destruction. But can art heal Marianne? And will her own future as a mother help her find peace?

You can purchase a copy of the book here

Jen, Book Worm, and Tracy read and reviewed this book. Keep reading to find out how our panelists rated this book.

Sep 11

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2023 Booker Longlist: Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein 

Our next longlist nominee is Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein. Bernstein was born in Montreal and now lives in the Scottish Highlands, where she teaches literature and creative writing. Her first book was a collection of poems titled The Coming Bad Days. Earlier this year she was selected for Grant’s Best of Young British Novelists.

Synopsis from Booker Prize website: A woman moves from the place of her birth to a ‘remote northern country’ to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. Soon after she arrives, a series of unfortunate events occurs: collective bovine hysteria; the death of a ewe and her nearly-born lamb; a local dog’s phantom pregnancy; a potato blight.

She notices that the community’s suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed particularly in her case. She feels their hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother’s property. Inside the house, although she tends to her brother and his home with the utmost care and attention, he too begins to fall ill…

You can purchase a copy of the book here

Three of our panelists read the novel. Keep reading to find out how our panellists rated this book.

Sep 10

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The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie

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The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie
UK Publication: September 2023
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: [★★★]

This ARC was provided by Random House UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

A must read for all the word nerds out there!

Sep 8

2023 Booker Longlist: In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

Next up for our panel is the novel In Ascension by Scottish writer Martin MacInnes. In ascension is MacInnes’ third novel. His debut novel Infinite Ground, won the Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Saltire Awards.

Synopsis for In Ascension taken from Booker Prize website: Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling the globe to study ancient organisms.

When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of Earth’s first life forms. What she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings, and leaves her facing an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.

You can purchase a copy of the book here

Keep reading to find out how our panellists rated this book.

Sep 6

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2023 Booker Longlist: How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney marks the approximate halfway point for our panelists as we make our way through the 2023 Booker longlist.

Elaine Feeney is an award-winning poet, novelist, short story writer and playwright from the west of Ireland. Her works often center around themes of national and cultural identity. She started off as a slam poet in her 20s and her debut novel, As you Were, won the Dalkey Emerging writer award. How to Build a Boat is her second novel and is set in the West of Ireland.

Synopsis taken from Booker Prize website: Jamie O’Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe.

At the age of 13, there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind, these things are intimately linked.

And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him.

Sound interesting? You can purchase a copy of the book here.

Our panelists were really divided on this one. Keep reading to find out how we ranked it.

Sep 4

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2023 Booker Longlist: Western Lane by Chetna Maroo

Next up for our panel is a debut novel, Western Lane by Chetna Maroo.

Synopsis from Booker Prize website: Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world.

Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo. But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a 13-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.

You can purchase a copy of the book here

Four of our panelists read this book. Keep reading to find out what they thought.

Aug 31

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2023 Booker Longlist: House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

Next up for our panel, we travel to Malaysia with Tan Tan Eng’s The House of Doors

Tan Twan Eng is probably one of the more well known authors on the list. He was born in Penang, Malaysia, and worked as an advocate in one of Kuala Lumpur’s leading law firms before becoming a full-time writer. His prior two novels were also listed as candidates for the Booker Prize. His second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists was shortlisted for the 2012 Booker prize and was named one of the 1001 books to read before you die (a list that brought several of our panelists together).

Synopsis from Booker Prize website: It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer, his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes to stay.

Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley’s friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she see him as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.

As Willie prepares to face his demons, Lesley confides secrets of her own, including her connection to the case of an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts – a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.

The novel will be released in the US on October 17th, 2023 and you can pre-order your copy here

Keep reading to find out how our panelists rated this book.

Aug 29

2023 Booker longlist: A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò

Next up for our panel is Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s A Spell of Good Things. Adébáyọ̀ is no stranger to literary acclaim. Her novel Stay with Me won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and Prix Les Afriques and was shortlist for the Women’s Prize. Many of our panelists have raved about her work.

Synopsis taken from Booker Prize website: Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s breathtaking novel shines a light on the haves and have-nots of Nigeria, and the shared humanity that lives in between. 

Ẹniọlá is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. His father has lost his job, so Ẹniọlá spends his days running errands, collecting newspapers and begging – dreaming of a big future.  Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family, and now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice. But when sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola and Ẹniọlá’s lives become inextricably intertwined…

You can purchase a copy of the book here

Keep reading to find out how our panelists rated this book.