Nov 11
It’s time for our panel to pick our winner. Find out which book our panelists think will win the prize this year. The prize will be announced tomorrow (and thus the reason for why I pushed out the last three posts in the same day.
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Apologies for rushing through these last three posts but time got away from me and I wanted to post this last one before our predictions post (which I will also post tonigh). Our panel had somewhat mixed reviews for Held. You can read our short reviews here: Held. The novel made it onto 3 of our predictions lists with Nicole, Tracy, and Anita predicting it. The Booker judges had this to say about the book…
‘The first few pages of this brief kaleidoscopic novel from the author of Fugitive Pieces may seem forbidding, yet every member of the judging panel was transported by this book. Michaels, a poet, is utterly uncompromising in her vision and execution. She is writing about war, trauma, science, faith and above all love and human connection; her canvas is a century of busy history, but she connects the fragments of her story through theme and image rather than character and chronology, intense moments surrounded by great gaps of space and time. Appropriately for a novel about consciousness, it seems to alter and expand your state of mind. Reading it is a unique experience.’
What does our panel think of the odds of this book being this year’s winner? Keep reading to find out
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Our panel reviewed the Safekeep (you can read our reviews here) favorably and it made it onto 3 of our predictions lists – Nicole, Tracy, and Lisa called it. The Booker judges had this to say about the book
‘Set in the early 1960s in the Netherlands in an isolated house, The Safekeep draws us into a world as carefully calibrated as a Dutch still-life. Every piece of crockery or silverware is accounted for here. Isa is the protagonist – a withdrawn figure who is safeguarding this inheritance. When her brother brings his new girlfriend Eva into this household the energy field changes as we sense boundaries of possession being crossed, other histories coming into the light. We loved this debut novel for its remarkable inhabitation of obsession. It navigates an emotional landscape of loss and return in an unforgettable way.’
What does our panel think of the odds of this book being this year’s winner? Keep reading to find out
Read moreNov 8
Our panel was very mixed on this book and so is the literary community. You can read our short reviews here: Creation Lake. The novel made it onto 2 of our predictions lists (Jen and Lisa correctly predicted it). The Booker judges had this to say about the book…
‘Sadie Smith – not her real name – is an FBI agent turned spy-for-hire, whose latest mission is to infiltrate a commune of eco-activists in rural France. She’s an extraordinary creation: sharp-minded, iron-willed, accustomed to moving fast and breaking things. As she investigates the group, she hacks into emails from their guru, a shadowy eccentric who has withdrawn from modernity into the ancient caves that dot the landscape; he has some beguiling ideas about the role of Neanderthals through history. What’s so electrifying about this novel is the way it knits contemporary politics and power with a deep counter-history of human civilisation. We found the prose thrilling, the ideas exciting, the book as a whole a profound and irresistible page-turner.’
You can read more about the novel and an author interview on the booker prize website: here.
What does our panel think of the odds of this book being this year’s winner? Keep reading to find out
Read moreJul 30
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.
Read moreJul 19
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?
Read moreJul 11
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.
Read moreMay 6
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.
Read moreApr 30
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.
Read moreMar 25
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?
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