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March 29, 2024, 02:10:11 PM

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The Booker Prize 2019

Started by BritishHobo, July 23, 2019, 10:31:25 PM

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BritishHobo

Or the 'Crankstart Booker Prize' as it should have been called, if they'd had the fucking BALLS. The Man Group have fucked off and been replaced as sponsors by a charitable foundation that sounds more like the name of a shit IPA from an achingly trendy brewery.

The longlist announcement is tomorrow, and despite being very resolute all year that I wasn't going to bother this time, I've let myself get excited and decided to read FUCKING ALL OF EM and do my bloody blog again. I may attempt to pace myself better this year; instead of ploughing through most/all the books before the shortlist's even announced, and then dragging my feet for months, I may restrict myself to reading one book a week, keep the enthusiasm going.

Any theories/hopes for the list? I have none because this is the only reading I do, so I don't know what came out this year. Now that the precedent has been set for a graphic novel to be nominated, will they do so again, or will they almost definitely just nominate prose books again? Who knows?!

BritishHobo

Forgot that they announce this at midnight, dickhead. Longlist as follows:

Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)
Kevin Barry (Ireland), Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate Books)
Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK/Nigeria), My Sister, The Serial Killer (Atlantic Books)
Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)
Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton)
John Lanchester (UK), The Wall (Faber & Faber)
Deborah Levy (UK), The Man Who Saw Everything (Hamish Hamilton)
Valeria Luiselli (Mexico/Italy), Lost Children Archive (4th Estate)
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown)
Max Porter (UK), Lanny (Faber & Faber)
Salman Rushdie (UK/India), Quichotte (Jonathan Cape)
Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking)
Jeanette Winterson (UK), Frankissstein (Jonathan Cape)

holyzombiejesus

Looks much better than last year's. Only read one so far (The Wall which is ace) and have another two in the pile next to the bed (Kevin Barry and Max Porter). Was hoping to see Sarah Moss' Ghost Wall, Ben Smith's Doggerland and Mark Haddon's Porpoise on there.

Just seen that one of the ones on the list, Lucy Ellmann's Ducks, Newburyport , is a "1,000-page monologue... composed almost entirely of a single sentence". Fuck that!

Don't think I'm going to bother this year although will again look forward to your blog Hobo.


BritishHobo

I've talked myself out and in and out again a few times. Like you, I'm just not sure I'll bother. Giving three months of the year over to reading just these is a hell of a task. I always go into them blind and persevere, but I may just pick them based on whether I'm interested, and stop reading if I'm really not into it.

With you on Ducks, Newburyport - Solar Bones was a beautiful book, but I'm not sure how that experiment will sustain over a thousand pages. And I don't know how I feel about cornering myself into reading the Handmaid's Tale sequel, as I'd already decided I really didn't want to.

There are some on there I've been wanting to give a try - The Wall, Lanny, My Sister, The Serial Killer, and I've got Frankissstein in my own next-to-bed pile. Although since I just bought the original Frankenstein the other week, I'm wondering if I'm better leaving the Winterson book until I've finished that.

We shall see. Either way, like you say, it's a more exciting list. No real unconvincing surprises.

holyzombiejesus

I'd struggle with Frankissstein because the title is so shit and I hate Jeanette Winterson.

Did you do a blog for the Welsh Book of the Year?

holyzombiejesus

The Deborah Levy book sounds absolutely rubbish, like something Richard Curtis would like.

QuoteIn 1988 Saul Adler (a narcissistic, young historian) is hit by a car on the Abbey Road. He is apparently fine; he gets up and goes to see his art student girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau. They have sex then break up, but not before she has photographed Saul crossing the same Abbey Road.

Saul leaves to study in communist East Berlin, two months before the Wall comes down.

Jennifer Moreau lol. What was the name of the detective in that shit crime novel last year? Was it Johnny Vice or something?

Mister Six

I don't understand the significance of what's being written there. She takes a photo of him "on the same Abbey Road"? As opposed to a different one? Is it set in a world where people can only cross the same road one time in their lives?

Anyway, would like to join in with this but definitely won't. I'm such an intellectual slob.

BritishHobo

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on July 24, 2019, 01:58:18 PM
I'd struggle with Frankissstein because the title is so shit and I hate Jeanette Winterson.

Did you do a blog for the Welsh Book of the Year?

Already a struggle. And with no disrespect to Deborah Levy, I really didn't get on with Hot Milk the other year, so I'm wary.

I didn't, sadly. I've done fuck-all reading this year because I've been doing (or not doing) a lot of writing for another project. I think that's why I'm a bit reluctant, as I've got a big stack of other books I want to read. But I've grabbed a load of the list from the library today, so I'm gonna have a leaf through and see what I think.

BritishHobo

Well that's one book done. Night Boat to Tangier, which is a sleepy treat of a book. Lovely and poetic and vast in its tininess.

mr. logic

Lost Children Archive is a cracker. Glad I started with that one. Can I have a link to the blog please?

Inspector Norse

The Atwood and Rushdie aren't out until September. I'm always bemused by the way that books can be nominated for the Booker before they've even been released. They're certain to be good, right?

I've not read any of the ones that are out but the Barry, Luiselli, Lanchester, Porter and Obioma ones have most appeal. Two or three of the others sound like right old bollocks. I may or may not be tempted by the Atwood if it is actually well-received on release, but am very unlikely to go near another Rushdie book ever again.

I'm impressed by you people wanting to sit and read all of them, though. Looking back over the last three or four longlists there are half a dozen tops that I've read and liked, and just as many that I've read and not cared for. That David Szalay one was one of the most unpleasant reading experiences I've had.

holyzombiejesus

Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)

QuoteBloomsbury, refused to publish this novel... you can sort of understand when it contains a passage like "the fact that Laura Ingalls Wilder doesn't ever mention going to the bathroom, the fact that how they handled that in a blizzard, the fact that we're about due for another blizzard ourselves, gizzard, wizard, buzzard, zigzag, ziggurat, mosque, piecemeal, peacetime, four-foot sword..."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/15/ducks-newburyport-by-lucy-ellmann-review

BlodwynPig

Quote from: BritishHobo on July 24, 2019, 06:58:04 AM
Forgot that they announce this at midnight, dickhead. Longlist as follows:

Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)
Kevin Barry (Ireland), Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate Books)
Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK/Nigeria), My Sister, The Serial Killer (Atlantic Books)
Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)
Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton)
John Lanchester (UK), The Wall (Faber & Faber)
Deborah Levy (UK), The Man Who Saw Everything (Hamish Hamilton)
Valeria Luiselli (Mexico/Italy), Lost Children Archive (4th Estate)
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown)
Max Porter (UK), Lanny (Faber & Faber)
Salman Rushdie (UK/India), Quichotte (Jonathan Cape)
Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking)
Jeanette Winterson (UK), Frankissstein (Jonathan Cape)
Blodwyn T. Pig (Stateless), Tales from the Blue Side: A CookdandBombd Odyssey (CaB Press)

All the usual names apart from the promising young newcomer

BritishHobo

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on July 29, 2019, 08:47:40 AM
Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/15/ducks-newburyport-by-lucy-ellmann-review

Oh, christ. And I thought I struggled with Milkman last year.

Ambling my way through Lanny, even though it's such a short book with lots and lots of spaces. I'm really enjoying it. Lovely, sedate little thing. It's nice to do this not as a project, and I've actually been doing more unrelated writing this week than I have in months.

holyzombiejesus

You not blogging this year, Hobo?

mr. logic

My sister the serial killer is an absolute belter. My favourite of those I've read so far.

BritishHobo

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on August 20, 2019, 12:57:43 PM
You not blogging this year, Hobo?

To be honest I've not really been reading them. I finished Lanny, which I quite liked, got halfway through The Wall, and then just stopped. I was enjoying it, but I couldn't really be bothered to finish it. I may give the shortlist a crack when it's out next week.

mr. logic

Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)
Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)
Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton)
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown)
Salman Rushdie (UK/India), Quichotte (Jonathan Cape)
Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking)


There's your shortlist. Same old typical bollocks. Did people really enjoy An Orchestra of Minorities more than My Sister the Serial Killer or The Wall?

BritishHobo

Changed my mind. Won't bother. Sorry Atwood but I CAN'T BE ARSED.

Small Man Big Horse

How can a book that's not even been released yet be nominated?

holyzombiejesus

There was something on Radio 4 about this earlier. The judges had the book posted to them in the form of loose A4 sheets, each watermarked with the judge's name. How fucking silly.

BritishHobo

Ah, the relief and freedom of realising the Booker winner has heen announced and you didn't even realise it.

Bit of a fuck-up eh, making the first black female winner share her prize with Atwood? Nice going, braniacs.

pigamus

Quote from: BritishHobo on October 16, 2019, 12:55:23 AM
Ah, the relief and freedom of realising the Booker winner has heen announced and you didn't even realise it.

Bit of a fuck-up eh, making the first black female winner share her prize with Atwood? Nice going, braniacs.

Yeah the black woman wins but only gets half the money! What a load of cop-out bollocks.

buttgammon

Shit idea all round. This might be a bit conspiracy theory-ish, but is it fair to say Evaristo is the 'real' winner, while Atwood is the more populist, attention-seeking choice?