Tag Archives: Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize 2015 Longlist

Man Booker Prize Longlist 2015

The longlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize was announced today. The thirteen titles are:

  • Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg (US)
  • The Green Road by Anne Enright (Ireland)
  • A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Jamaica)
  • The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami (US)
  • Satin Island by Tom McCarthy (UK)
  • The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria)
  • The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan (UK)
  • Lila by Marilynne Robinson (US)
  • Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy (India)
  • The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota (UK)
  • The Chimes by Anna Smaill (New Zealand)
  • A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (US)
  • A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (US)

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Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Oryx and CrakeAs I read and enjoyed ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘The Blind Assassin’ and ‘Cat’s Eye’ before I started writing this blog, I thought it was high time I read more of Margaret Atwood’s work. ‘Oryx and Crake’ is the first book in Atwood’s critically acclaimed  dystopian MaddAddam trilogy of novels and tells the story of Snowman – also known as Jimmy – who is believed to be the only human survivor left in a post-apocalyptic world along with genetically modified creatures called Crakers. As Snowman makes a journey back to the place where the destruction occurred which wiped out the human population, we learn through flashbacks how the world came to be almost destroyed and what happened to his friend Crake and the mysterious Oryx. Continue reading

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Us by David Nicholls

Us‘Us’ by David Nicholls tells the story of Douglas Petersen, a middle-aged biochemist whose wife, Connie, suddenly announces that she thinks their marriage of twenty years has “run its course” and that she wants to leave him. Despite their problems, the couple set off on their long-planned family holiday touring western Europe with their teenage son, Albie, before he leaves home to study at university. However, Douglas hopes the trip will help him win Connie back and convince her to save their marriage. Continue reading

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The Man Booker Prize Shortlist Readings 2014

Booker shortlist 2014

Last year, I went to the Man Booker Prize shortlist readings event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre. This year, I was lucky enough to win tickets to the same event which was held at the Royal Festival Hall on Monday and hosted by Kirsty Wark.

This year’s shortlisted novels are:

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

J by Howard Jacobson

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

How to be Both by Ali Smith

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The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

The Lives of OthersShortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, ‘The Lives of Others’ by Neel Mukherjee tells the story of twenty-one year old Supratik Ghosh who has left his comfortable family home in Calcutta/Kolkata to join the Communist Party of India. Set primarily in 1967, the story alternates between Supratik’s new life as a Naxalite activist and guerilla fighter working in the rice fields of West Bengal and the everyday lives of the relatives he has left behind.  Continue reading

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The Man Booker Prize Longlist 2014

This year’s Man Booker Prize longlist was announced today. The thirteen titles are:

Joshua Ferris – To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Richard Flanagan – The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Karen Joy Fowler – We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Siri Hustvedt – The Blazing World
Howard Jacobson – J
Paul Kingsnorth – The Wake
David Mitchell – The Bone Clocks
Neel Mukherjee – The Lives of Others
David Nicholls – Us
Joseph O’Neill – The Dog
Richard Powers – Orfeo
Ali Smith – How To Be Both
Niall Williams – History of the Rain

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The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

The LuminariesWhilst wondering last month when I was ever going to read ‘The Luminaries’, a thought suddenly occurred to me: what better time to start reading an 800+ page book than the beginning of up to five days of London Underground strikes? I have an eBook copy of Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize-winning epic novel and I tend to use my Kindle when bad weather, industrial action or some other disruption is likely to severely delay my commute to work. An e-reader is easier to hold on a crowded train than a large hardback book and if I get stranded somewhere for a long time and I finish a novel, I have several more to choose from right there and then. Continue reading

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The Folio Prize

Folio Prize 2014

The shortlist for the first Folio Prize was announced today.  The eight nominated books are:

Red Doc by Anne Carson
Schroder by Amity Gaige
Last Friends by Jane Gardam
Benediction by Kent Haruf
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
Tenth of December by George Saunders

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Eleanor Catton wins the Man Booker Prize

It has just been announced that Eleanor Catton has won this year’s Man Booker Prize for her novel ‘The Luminaries’.  Not only is she the youngest ever winner of the prestigious prize at the age of just 28, the book is also the longest ever to win at 832 pages.  Her productivity levels are simply incredible – I feel exhausted just thinking about it. Continue reading

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The Man Booker Prize Shortlist Readings

Last night, I went to the Southbank Centre to listen to the shortlisted authors for this year’s Man Booker Prize give readings from their nominated novels.  I really enjoyed a similar event for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in June so I bought a ticket for this one as soon as possible.

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A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

A Tale For The Time BeingShortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, ‘A Tale for the Time Being’ by Ruth Ozeki tells the story of a diary written a decade ago by a Japanese teenage girl called Nao which is washed up on an island off British Colombia in a Hello Kitty lunchbox after the tsunami in 2011.  The diary is discovered by a novelist called Ruth who tries to find out what happened to Nao and her family, including her great-grandmother, Jiko, a Buddhist nun and her great-uncle, Haruki, a kamikaze pilot in the Second World War.  

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Freshly Pressed…. Again!

So apparently it’s possible to be Freshly Pressed twice… Just over a year after my post about eBooks was Freshly Pressed, my post about the forthcoming changes to the Man Booker Prize criteria received the honour yesterday.

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The Man Booker Prize: US authors to be considered?

The Man Booker Prize is certainly no stranger to controversy. However, reports that American writers will be eligible from next year onwards have managed to provoke even more debate than normal with many arguing that the Prize will lose its “distinctiveness”.  There has been no official comment from the Booker committee yet but changes are set to be announced later this week. Continue reading

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The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

The Testament of Mary‘The Testament of Mary’ by Colm Tóibín will probably be the only book longlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize that I will definitely be able to read before the shortlist is announced in a few weeks time.  The story is told from the point of view of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is still grieving for her son many years after his death and does not believe that he is the son of God.  Her testament in her old age focuses mainly on her son’s last days before the crucifixion and what happened afterwards. Continue reading

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Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Unaccustomed EarthI am probably not going to have the chance to read Jhumpa Lahiri’s Man Booker Prize longlisted novel ‘The Lowland’ any time soon as it isn’t due to be published in the UK until the end of September so I thought I would try a collection of her short stories instead.  ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ contains eight exquisitely written stories.  The first half of the collection consists of five stand-alone stories while the second half is more of a novella in three parts featuring the same characters, Hema and Kaushik. Continue reading

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The Man Booker Prize Longlist 2013

The longlist for the Man Booker Prize 2013 was announced today.  151 books were submitted for consideration and the final 13 are:

Five Star Billionaire: Tash Aw
We Need New Names: NoViolet Bulawayo
The Luminaries: Eleanor Catton
Harvest: Jim Crace
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman: Eve Harris
The Kills: Richard House
The Lowland: Jhumpa Lahiri
Unexploded: Alison MacLeod
TransAtlantic: Colum McCann
Almost English: Charlotte Mendelson
A Tale for the Time Being: Ruth Ozeki
The Spinning Heart: Donal Ryan
The Testament of Mary: Colm Tóibín Continue reading

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Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel

‘Giving Up the Ghost’ is Hilary Mantel’s memoir first published in 2003, six years before she won the Booker Prize in 2009 for ‘Wolf Hall.  The ghosts in question are the ghost of her step-father, the ghost she saw in the garden at the age of seven and the ghost of the child she could never have.   Continue reading

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Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

I read ‘Wolf Hall‘ nearly a year ago and to be honest, I can’t remember a great deal about the actual content of the story and had to force myself to finish it.  Although the book was undoubtedly a quality piece of historical fiction, my main gripe about it was that there were too many characters and unless you have studied early sixteenth century British history in considerable depth then it is very hard to keep track of exactly who is who.  However, although ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ also has a large cast of characters, this instalment of the trilogy is set over a much narrower time period (one year rather than three decades) and the story of Anne Boleyn’s downfall is likely to be much more familiar to readers than Thomas Cromwell’s early years (at least it was to me anyway).  The fact that it’s over 200 pages shorter than ‘Wolf Hall’ also helps a lot. Continue reading

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The Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist

The shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013 was announced today at the London Book Fair.  The six nominees are…

   Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

    May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes

    Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver

    Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

   Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

   NW by Zadie Smith

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The Folio Prize: Do We Need Another Literary Award?

The Folio PrizeAnother day sees another literary award announced…this time, it’s the launch of the Folio Prize, a new £40,000 literary award sponsored by the Folio Society for the best work of fiction published in the English language.  This particular prize was created after several literary bigwigs complained about the supposed dumbing down of the Booker Prize in 2011, a year when books were chosen for their ‘readability’.  Heaven forbid that somebody who wasn’t on the judging panel might actually understand or even enjoy something on the shortlist…
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