The Reader's Room

Aug 4

2024 Booker Longlist: Initial thoughts

Now that the list has been released and our panel has had few days to think about it, we share our thoughts about the list, which books we felt were shafted, and which books’ inclusion surprised us.

Jul 30

6 Comments

2024 Booker Prize Longlist

It’s finally arrived! The longlist was announced about 10 minutes ago. Lots of leaks this year and looks like they were correct since I had seen half the list leaked.

How did our panel do? I I predicted 3 correctly, falling in the middle of the pack for our panel. I vacillated on Wild Houses since I had read it and thought it was good but not quite good enough to make the list. I was clearly wrong. I have a lot of reading to catch up on since I’ve only read 4 of the books on the list (and am halfway through my 5th thanks to the leaks). I thankfully already have copies of 10 of the books since most of them were on my radar to read for our Booker panel.

Our winners this year were Tracy and Anita who both correctly predicted 5. Lisa predicted 3, and Nicole came in at 2 correct predictions. Now the reading begins! Follow our panel as we make our way through the longlist and post abbreviated reviews for each book. Below is the full list of the longlist books.

Jul 24

10 Comments

2024 Booker Prize Longlist Predictions

It’s my favorite time of the year: Booker season! Every year our panel comes together to read and review all the booker nominees and to predict the winners. This year’s longlist will be announced on July 30. Every year we try and most years we fail spectacularly to get more than 3 correct predictions each. Will we have better luck this year? Keep reading to find out who we all selected and let us know what you think.

Jul 19

2 Comments

This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack

This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack
Published: October 26, 2023
Rating: ★★★★
Order it here: This Plague of Souls

Nealon has just been released from prison and arrives to an empty house. Where are his wife and son? Why was Nealon in prison? As Nealon reflects on the past, loss, loneliness, fatherhood, and life’s meaning, his reveries are interrupted by a mysterious caller who appears to have answers to Nealon’s musings. Described as a metaphysical thriller or noir, This Plague of Souls is a follow up (although can be read as a stand alone) book to Solar Bones. But is it worth the read?

Jul 11

7 Comments

Exploring the New York Times 21st Century Book List

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been immersed in the recent New York times feature on the top 100 books of the 21st century. A big thank you to my work colleague and friend, John, who turned me on to it since I had been living under a rock and had missed out on the start of it.

May 6

1 Comment

Long Island by Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín is one of my favorite authors and I’ve been fortunate enough to attend several of his readings. Brooklyn was perhaps one of my least favorite of his novels, although I still liked it. Long Island is a sequel to Brooklyn, picking up about 20 years after the first novel ended. As we near Booker season, I was eager to read Tóibín’s latest since his books often make the lists and thanks to Scribner, I received an advanced copy. Did I find it to be Booker worthy? Keep reading to find out.

Apr 30

1 Comment

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan and several of her books are among my favorites of all time. So when it came to selecting a book for Women’s History month for my joint reading challenge (my partner and I are reading and discussing a book each month), I immediately thought of this book. I’m late to reviewing it since I wanted to pair the review with the series and it took us over a month to get to the series. I had read Alias Grace when it first came out but didn’t remember too much about it. I tend to gravitate more toward her less conventional (e.g., dystopian, genre bending) books than her straight historical fiction novels. My partner had not read any of her books, and I was a bit tired of some of the other types of genres we had picked in prior months (I needed a serious break from books like Black Leopard, Red Wolf – sorry James). So it was the perfect time for us to read an Atwood novel. Here’s what I thought.

Apr 22

City of Pearl by Karen Traviss

Happy Earth day to all our lovely readers. Those of you who have been following our blog know that my partner and I have been doing a monthly themed read this year. We alternate picking books that fit the listed themes in the photo above and we read, discuss, and review them in our book journals. This month it was my partner’s turn to pick for April (either comedy or earth day related books).

I fully admit that I was judgmental about his book selection from the start and thought he was trying to play an April Fool’s joke on me. The kitschy cover and description of both the book and the author (“her work on Halo, Gears of War, Batman, G.I. Joe, and other major franchises has earned her a broad range of fans”) did nothing to make me feel better about the prospect of reading it. My initial reaction was to question how a science fiction book about aliens had even the remotest connection to an earth day theme. Science fiction is my least favorite genre, well maybe second to romance novels. After a few weeks of silent pouting and self-pitying, I pulled myself together and read the book.

Did I survive it? Keep reading to find out.

Apr 3

6 Comments

Earth Day Inspired Books

April is the month for a number of celebrations related to the our earth and the natural world. National wildlife week is from April 4-9, Earth Day is on April 22, Arbor day is on April 29, and the whole month is National Garden Month.

Those of you who have been following the blog, know that my partner and I are doing a joint monthly theme read where we alternate picking a book (for each of the 12 pre-determined themes we selected), read said book together, and discuss the book. This month it was his turn to pick a novel for our earth day/natural world theme. It was not a choice about which I was overly enthusiastic (more to come on that later) although it was certainly a creative pick. While he was busy trying to kill me with his book choices, I was browsing my shelves and gathering inspiration from the Litsy community. Here are some selections we recommend to get you in the mood for earth day celebrations.

Mar 25

1 Comment

Parade by Rachel Cusk

I’ve been trying to be proactive this year in my selection of novels in preparation for a more informed Booker prediction list. So, I requested, and received, an ARC of Cusk’s latest novel Parade (thank you to Farrer,Straus, and Gioux and net galley).

I have a love-hate relationship with Cusk’s novels. They are brilliant but they also often make me feel like I need an advanced literary degree in order to make it through them. So how did this latest novel stack up for me?