Two Debut Novelists on the 2011 Booker Shortlist

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September 6, 2011 | 5 books mentioned 4

Related Books:

Well-known, established writer (and now four-time shortlister) Julian Barnes is likely the early favorite on the 2011 Booker shortlist, while Stephen Kelman and A.D. Miller make the list with their first novels. Alan Hollinghurst is probably the biggest surprise not to make it through to the next round. The longlist was offered here with some excerpts a month ago, but since you might not have gotten around to them then, we’ll offer the same with the shortlist below.

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Let us know if you’ve read any of these – and if you think any deserve to win.

created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.

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The Booker’s Dozen: The 2017 Booker Longlist

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July 26, 2017 | 5 books mentioned 8

In the fourth year that the Booker Prize has been open to U.S. authors, four American authors again make the longlist, including National Book Award and Pulitzer-winner Colson Whithead. Arundhati Roy is the lone former winner on the list. Notable names like George Saunders, Paul Auster, Zadie Smith and Mohsin Hamid make for formidable competition alongside three debut novels.

All the Booker Prize longlisters are below (with bonus links where available):

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (Free Speech Is a Black-and-White Issue: The Millions Interviews Paul Auster)
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (A Classic Nightmare: On Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves)
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (The World-Spanning Humanism of Mohsin Hamid)
Solar Bones by Mike McCormack
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
Elmet by Fiona Mozley
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (In the Between: Lincoln in the Bardo)
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
Autumn by Ali Smith (Wordsmith: The Beguiling Gifts of Ali Smith)
Swing Time by Zadie Smith (Nameless and Undefined: On Zadie Smith’s Swing Time)
Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Scars That Never Fade: On Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad)

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The Pulitzer needs a shortlist

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April 19, 2006 | 5 books mentioned 1

I was ruminating a bit about the Pulitzer Prize this week and wondering why it isn’t a bigger deal. The bookstore I worked at in Los Angeles may not be indicative of national trends, but while I was there, the Booker Prize and the National Book Award moved more books than the Pulitzer. (The Nobel Prize had a bigger impact on sales than all the other awards combined, believe it or not.) I think part of the reason that the Pulitzer fails to capture the interest of readers is that it’s much less controversial than other awards. Pulitzer winners are almost always safe picks. But part of it, I think, is that the award has no build up. The judges do not announce the nominees (aka the shortlist) in advance, instead the finalists are revealed at the same time as the winner. It’s pretty obvious that having a shortlist would build interest – some might say artificially – by placing the prize in the public eye for longer. But I’d argue that the Pulitzer is worthy of this treatment. Though the picks are often safe, taken together, the Pulitzer winners are an incomplete, but still compelling bunch of books. The Pulitzers are primarily a journalism award, and that, I think, matters too, in that it allows us to equate the novel with journalism, which, at its best, is meant to be a noble and unfrivolous pursuit. (And this isn’t just the J-school grad in me talking.) Finally, giving the Pulitzer a shortlist would just be more fun and it would give us book bloggers more to natter on about.Previously: Excerpts and links for the Pulitzer winners and finalists.

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Belarusian Investigative Journalist Svetlana Alexievich Wins the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature

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October 8, 2015 | 5 books mentioned 8

Belarusian investigative journalist Svetlana Alexievich has been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature. The selection of a non-fiction writer is a rare development for the Nobel, which has overwhelmingly favored fiction writers over the years.

Alexievich is known in the U.S. pretty much exclusively for her powerful book of non-fiction, Voices from Chernobyl, which was translated by Keith Gessen and initially published in hardcover by Dalkey Archive Press. The book relies on the testimony of survivors, in the vein of John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Dan Wickett wrote about the book in these pages in 2005:
I don’t think I set this 300-plus page book down once after I started reading it. Alexievich, at danger to her own self, visited the area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear reactor and interviewed anybody she could find who would talk – people who had been firefighters, or relatives of residents who evacuated, those who didn’t, hunters of animals left behind, etc. It’s absolutely fascinating to read what happened, how people found out, and the various reactions to the news.
Alexievich’s book on the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Zinky Boys, takes a similar approach, as do several other volumes which have as yet not been published in English translations.

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IMPAC shortlist 2007

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April 4, 2007 | 5 books mentioned 1 2 min read

The IMPAC shortlist has arrived. If you don’t know about the IMPAC, it’s a very unique prize with a very long longlist. This year’s longlist was composed of nominees from 169 libraries in 45 countries around the world. Those picks are then whittled down to a shortlist via a panel of judges. As you’ll see from the shortlist, since the process leading up to this award takes so long, some of the books aren’t exactly new. I think involving libraries makes the IMPAC unique compared to a lot of other awards out there. It seems a lot more egalitarian than, say, the Booker or the National Book Award, and I appreciate the international flavor as well. There’s more info about the award at the IMPAC site. Now, here’s the shortlist with some comments:Arthur and George by Julian Barnes – Was shortlisted for the Booker back in 2005 – excerptA Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry – Joined Barnes on the 2005 Booker shortlist.Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee – This book was featured in our long ago post “The beauty of British book design.”Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer – Corey took a look at this book in a “CVBoMC” installment last year. – excerpt.The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs – This debut effort by British novelist Hobbes was nominated by a single library in Bergen, NorwayNo Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy – With The Road getting all the praise these days, some might forget that McCarthy’s previous novel hit shelves just 21 months ago, a blink of an eye for a writer who’s written ten books in 41 years – excerptOut Stealing Horses by Per Petterson – This book by the Norwegian Petterson won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize last year. It’ll be published in the U.S. next month.Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie – Shalimar was a Whitbread finalist in 2005, but generally the book is not thought to be one of Rushdie’s best efforts. The book was nominated by a library in Berlin – excerpt

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4 comments:

  1. I read Sisters Brothers and was badly disappointed. I found it pointless. Thin characters, the story did not resolve itself, the characters were neither likable nor detestable and therefore boring. A long while since I’ve been so let down by a book.

  2. I’ve read three of the 6 – The Sense of an Ending Jamrach’s Menagerie ,
    and The Sisters Brothers. I enjoyed all three but thought Carol Birch’s book was head and shoulders above the others in ambition and achievement.

  3. I’ve read them all, except Half Blood Blues, which I’m currently reading. I’m finding it hard to pick a winner; I was so sure Hollinghurst had it in the bag that it’s hard to pick an alternative winner. Julian Barnes is the likely winner, but I think the book I enjoyed the most was The Sisters Brothers.

  4. I read Pigeon English and found it weak and inauthentic. I also read The Sisters Brothers which was a riot – a Coen brothers movie in book form, if that makes sense. Highly recommended.

    Jamrach’s Menagerie is up next.

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Booker Shocker: Finkler Takes the Prize

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October 12, 2010 | 5 books mentioned 1

Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question has won the Booker Prize, beating out far better known shortlisters like C by Tom McCarthy and Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey, and Emma Donoghue’s Room, which has been getting quite a lot of buzz of late.

Bloomsbury USA, the book’s stateside publisher, meanwhile, got lucky with the book hitting shelves today.

The publisher’s description calls the book “a scorching story of exclusion and belonging, justice and love, aging, wisdom and humanity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best.”

An excerpt of the book (scroll down) begins:

He should have seen it coming.

His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one.

He was a man who saw things coming. Not shadowy premonitions before and after sleep, but real and present dangers in the daylit world. Lamp posts and trees reared up at him, splintering his shins. Speeding cars lost control and rode on to the footpath leaving him lying in a pile of torn tissue and mangled bones. Sharp objects dropped from scaffolding and pierced his skull.

Jacobson has written a number of novels. Probably the best known are The Making of Henry, Coming From Behind, and Kalooki Nights, which was on the 2006 Booker longlist and which Sara Ivry in these pages called “Hilarious, shocking, provocative.”

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The Booker’s Dozen: The 2016 Booker Longlist

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July 27, 2016 | 5 books mentioned

In the third year that the Booker Prize has been open to U.S. authors, five American authors again make the longlist, including National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Paul Beatty. Double winner J.M. Coetzee is the lone former winner on the list, while Elizabeth Strout is the most celebrated American to be tapped. Other notable names include A.L. Kennedy and David Means, and four debut novels made the list.

All the Booker Prize longlisters are below (with bonus links where available):

The Sellout by Paul Beatty (The Inanity of American Plutocracy: On Paul Beatty’s The Sellout)
The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
Serious Sweet by A.L. Kennedy
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The North Water by Ian McGuire
Hystopia by David Means
The Many by Wyl Menmuir
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh (Ottessa Moshfegh’s Year in Reading)
Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves
My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (Elizabeth Strout’s Year in Reading, A Millions Top Ten book)
All That Man Is by David Szalay
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

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