‘The Panopticon’ by Jenni Fagan tells the story of Anais Hendricks, a fifteen-year-old young offender from Scotland who has spent all of her life in care and is more or less constantly in trouble with the police. After being accused of assaulting a police officer who ends up in a coma, she spends time in the Panopticon, an institution for chronic young offenders which takes its name from Jeremy Bentham’s suggested “circular prison with cells so constructed that the prisoners can be observed at all times”.
Tag Archives: Novels
The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan
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Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003, ‘Notes on a Scandal’ by Zoe Heller is a tightly-written psychological thriller driven almost entirely by the characters rather than the actual events. The story is told retrospectively from the point of view of Barbara Covett, a History teacher at a North London comprehensive school. Lonely and nearing retirement, she forms a friendship with a new pottery teacher, Sheba Hart. However, Sheba’s affair with one of her fifteen-year-old male pupils has far-reaching consequences for everyone, especially Barbara.
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The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1995, ‘The Stone Diaries’ by Carol Shields is a fictional biography of Daisy Goodwill which outlines her life story in ten chapters covering her birth, childhood, marriage, love, motherhood, work, sorrow, ease, illness and death. Born in Canada in 1905, Daisy’s life spans the majority of the twentieth century and is both very ordinary and yet also highly extraordinary. Continue reading
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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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Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
I have finally got round to reading ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette’ by Maria Semple which was the only book shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction that I didn’t manage to read before the winner was announced in June. It tells the story of Bernadette Fox, an award-winning architect who lives in Seattle with her husband, Elgie, who works for Microsoft and their teenage daughter, Bee. For various reasons, Bernadette loathes Seattle and one day, she simply disappears, leaving Bee to compile a series of emails, letters, police reports and other correspondence in order to find her mother. Continue reading
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A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Shortlisted 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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Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Even though I have been a book blogger for quite a while now and am generally meant to be on top of all things bookish, I have been very slow at getting round to reading the book that pretty much the entire world (no exaggeration) has been discussing for the last year or so. I got a bit fed up of my mum and my sister going into another room to talk about ‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn so I thought I had better get round to reading it so that I could join in with the conversation.
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The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
Winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, ‘The Orphan Master’s Son’ by Adam Johnson tells the story of Pak Jun Do’s journey from life in a North Korean state orphanage to professional kidnapper to a career in Pyongyang at the heart of Kim Jong-il’s regime. It is an intriguing and sprawling story which explores several aspects of life in one of the most secretive countries in the world. Continue reading
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Banned Books Week
This year, Banned Books Week runs from 22nd to 28th September. Founded in 1982 and sponsored by the American Library Association, the campaign celebrates open access to information and aims to raise awareness of intellectual freedom.
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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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Am I A Book Snob?
This week, I found a very interesting post by Amanda Nelson on an awesome website called Book Riot which lists the sort of things that a stereotypical book snob might say and then a “translation” for what they really mean. It’s a very humorous and tongue-in-cheek piece which isn’t meant to be taken very seriously but it got me thinking about book snobbishness and which statements are the sort of things that I might say…
E-reading isn’t REAL reading. = I need my personal preferences about my hobby to be validated as the only right and moral way do to a thing.
Not guilty. I read printed books and I read eBooks. As I have said elsewhere, e-readers are great for travel but I still read a lot of printed books. Continue reading
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Under the Skin by Michel Faber
‘Under the Skin’ is a very difficult book to summarise without giving away too much of the plot. Essentially, it tells the story of Isserley, who drives around deserted areas of northern Scotland picking up well-built lone male hitchhikers. I really don’t want to tell you any more than that and if you’ve already read it, then you’ll understand why. If you haven’t, then you’ll have to forgive me for being so cryptic. You’ll just have to trust me when I say that the book is much more intriguing if you read it without any real clues about what will happen beyond the initial set-up. Continue reading
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Best Book to Film Adaptations
There have been so many mediocre film adaptations of great novels which don’t even come close to capturing the magic of the original story. But there are quite a few gems out there and even though the book always comes first, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the film adaptations which follow are always completely inferior to the original work. Here is my list of the best book to film adaptations (where I have both read the book and seen the film).
We Need To Talk About Kevin (book by Lionel Shriver published in 2004, film directed by Lynne Ramsay released in 2011)
I loved this understated and creepy adaptation of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’. The sparse style and atmosphere of the film contrasts with the comparatively “wordy” text of the book but it works. The casting of Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller as Eva and Kevin were both excellent choices.
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Books I Thought I Would Struggle With But Didn’t
Generally, I avoid picking up books which I don’t think I will enjoy. However, that doesn’t mean I always have super high expectations for everything I read. Here is my list of books I initially thought I would struggle with but actually liked a lot.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
I wasn’t sure if I would like a book as ‘philosophical’ as this one but I did. It’s still a pretty weird book and might be viewed as pretentious, but as I said in my review, it’s a very readable sort of pretentiousness. Continue reading
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The Last Life by Claire Messud
‘The Last Life’ by Claire Messud is a coming-of-age story set in the early 1990s about Sagesse LaBasse, a French-American girl whose family own a hotel in the south of France which was opened by her grandfather after he emigrated from Algeria. The story follows Sagesse as she explores her multiple identities and comes to terms with the events of the past. Continue reading
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Take Me to the Castle by F. C. Malby
Firstly, I must thank F. C. Malby for her patience as she sent me a copy of her first novel ‘Take Me to the Castle’ several months ago and I have only just got round to reviewing it. Set in the Czech Republic in the aftermath of the collapse of communism, ‘Take Me to the Castle’ tells the story of a young woman called Jana and how the tumultuous political changes in her home country are affecting her life following the recent death of her dissident father. Much of the story also focuses on a love triangle between Jana and her two potential suitors, Milos and Lukas. Continue reading
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The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
Winner of the 2012 Guardian First Book Award, ‘The Yellow Birds’ by Kevin Powers is about two young soldiers from Virginia fighting in the Iraq war in 2004 on their first tour of duty in Al Tafar. The story is told from the point of view of twenty-one year old Private John Bartle as he describes what happened to him and fellow soldier, Daniel Murphy, who we quickly learn will not make it home alive. The chapters alternate between the war in Iraq and the events after Bartle’s homecoming as details slowly emerge of exactly what happened to them.
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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 readingFiled under Books
J. K. Rowling Publishes Crime Novel Under Pseudonym
Today, I woke up to the news that J. K Rowling has published a crime novel called ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ under the name Robert Galbraith. Published about three months ago, the book has so far sold about 1,500 copies in hardback and tells the story of a war veteran turned private investigator. The publisher’s website confirmed that Robert Galbraith was a pseudonym but the true identity of the author has only just been revealed today. Continue reading
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