Booker Prize Shortlist 2018
martin_z
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
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annpanagain
5 years agomartin_z
5 years agoRelated Discussions
Booker Prize open to all - thoughts?
Comments (8)Here is an exerpt from the official Booker Man site: "The prize, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008 after launching in 1969, aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland." Okay.........WHY change the whole premise? I understand the " every kid is equal and every one has to get a trophy" epidemic that seems to be sweeping our country ...but let's leave some things alone....See MoreBooker Prize Shortlist 2013
Comments (21)The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. You know what? I only finished this three weeks ago. It's seven hundred pages; it's dense. I can't face reading it again. I enjoyed it, but not that much. So - it's about a load of people in an interlocking and very complex story about gold mining in New Zealand. The book is set in 1866, but we get a lot of backstory as well. It's very interesting, once you get into it. But there is are a couple of strange things that really get to me. The first is the fact that the chapter titles are astrological references, and each part of the book has an astrological chart with the names of twelve of the important people in the twelve places around it. And yet - there is practically NO other reference to astrology in the book - one person reads fortunes, but she pretty well admits to being a charlatan. So what is the point of the astrological bits? No doubt, if you know something about the subject, you might find the references enlightening. But to me, it strikes of being clever for its own sake, and adds nothing to the book. The other is that the book has the Victorian trick of summarizing the chapter in the heading. For example:- Chapter 1 - Mercury in Sagittarius - In which a stranger arrives in Hokitika; a secret council is disturbed; Walter Moody conceals his most recent memory; and Thomas Balfour begins to tell a story. That's all right, so far as it goes - but near the very end of the book, the summarizing starts to become longer and longer and the chapters get shorter and shorter - some chapters are a page and a half of summary - and only a couple of paragraphs. Why, for heaven's sake? So, though I thought the book was really good, these irritations got to me - and the more I think about them, the less I like them. So - I'm not going to read it again. It won't win. I hope....See MoreBooker Prize Collection
Comments (26)Vee, I recall reading several of the novels on that Whitbread List that I think you read as well, because we had some discussions about them here at RP. Small Island -- Andrea Levy; Music & Silence -- Rose Tremain; and maybe The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -- Mark Haddon I have also read several of the biographies, including Bad Blood by Lorna Sage, that I remember you commenting about. I notice that Vernon God Little by D B C Pierre (Peter Finlay) won both the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award in 2003. I thought it was tripe, the sort of satire/black comedy that appeals to those who think John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces is a masterpiece. I think Vernon might be the record holder for most curse words in a major prize winner and such descriptions as this: "Deputy Gurie tears a strip of meat from a bone; it flaps through her lips like a sh*t taken backwards." and lots more of the same caliber. [thanks to one of the reviewers at Goodreads for the quote -- he thinks it's "a gem"!] I haven't retained much of How to be both, but I'm sorry that I was unaware of your response to reading it until several months after you posted. You could have helped me greatly with the art part. I think I mostly read it wrong, so thanks to Martin and Sheri for setting me straight on some of my interpretations. Carolyn, the Poe story could have been "The Fall of the House of Usher" since incest is suggested there, too. But I think the incest in it is probably more obvious than in "The Tell-Tale Heart." I read the latter without grasping it at all, because at the time I was naïve and didn't even know that kind of incest existed. I don't remember it being mentioned, either, in any of my "Poe classes." Your mother was a better educator than the ones I had. Edit to add: I was on the right track about "jolly good reads." Thank you Annpan and Vee for verifying that. I share with you, Vee, a contentedness with reading DduM, Hill, and Franklin. :-)...See MoreBooker Prize Shortlist 2016
Comments (22)And it's also worth mentioning a couple of firsts - Beatty is the first US writer to win the Booker, and The Sellout is the first paperback to win the Booker. The publishers, OneWorld, must be pinching themselves - they have published the Booker winner two years running, which isn't bad for a little independent publisher who were only formed in 1986....See Moreannpanagain
5 years ago
sheri_z6
5 years ago
Rosefolly
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agomartin_z
5 years agokathy_t
5 years agomartin_z
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoRosefolly
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agokathy_t
5 years ago
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