hilary mantel

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Not the Orange Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist

Womens prize logoThere may not be a new sponsor yet, however 20 books appear on the long list for the international Women’s Prize for Fiction and although there are certain predictable inclusions, such as Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies, Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour and Zadie Smith’s NW, it is great to see such a diverse range of excellent books.

life after lifeI have managed to read a few already, here are links to my reviews of Elif Shafak’s Honour, M.L.Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans and Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life. I enjoyed all three books, but won’t be trying to guess the winner, it’s much too subjective to choose, read the reviews and see what appeals to you. I am sure there is something for everyone.

There is an interesting article in The Guardian today with links to a synopsis and reviews for all of the books. They include reader reviews as well as journalist reviews. The Guardian Bookshop is an interesting alternative for buying new books in the UK, particularly as they don’t charge an additional delivery charge for every book.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013 is awarded for the best novel of the year written by a woman. Any woman writing in English of any nationality, country of residence, age or subject matter is eligible. The shortlist will be announced on April 16. Happy Reading!

The Longlist of 20 novels

Womens-Prize-longlist

Kitty Aldridge A Trick I Learned From Dead Men

Kate Atkinson Life After LifeHonour

Ros Barber The Marlowe Papers

Shani Boianjiu The People of Forever are Not Afraid

Gillian Flynn Gone Girl

Sheila Heti How Should A Person Be?

A M Homes May We Be Forgiven

Barbara Kingsolver Flight Behaviour

Deborah Copaken Kogan The Red Book

Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies

Bonnie Nadzam Lamb

Emily Perkins The Forrests122012_0454_TheLightBet1.jpg

Michèle Roberts Ignorance

Francesca Segal The Innocents

Maria Semple Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Elif Shafak Honour

Zadie Smith NW

M L Stedman The Light Between Oceans

Carrie Tiffany Mateship with Birds

G. Willow Wilson Alif the Unseen

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Man Booker Prize 2012 Shortlist

Quiet on the blog front while life enters an extremely busy period here with La Rentrée and a working visit to London; I have a few summer reads still to review, so hope to add those as I find time.

Well the Bookies are favouring Hilary Mantel and Will Self, a couple of Scottish authors are bagging it for being “based on the conceit that upper-class Englishness is the cultural yardstick against which all literature must be measured”, but the reading public are generally enthusiastic and optimistic for a unique collection of literary fiction in the Man Booker Prize this year.

Speculation aside, the judges have concluded their re-reading and literary debate and announced this morning the following shortlist:

Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)

Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And Other Stories)

Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)

Alison Moore, The Lighthouse (Salt)

Will Self, Umbrella (Bloomsbury)

Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis (Faber & Faber)

“After re-reading an extraordinary longlist of twelve, it was the pure power of prose that settled most debates. We loved the shock of language shown in so many different ways and were exhilarated by the vigour and vividly defined values in the six books that we chose – and in the visible confidence of the novel’s place in forming our words and ideas.” Peter Stothard, Chair of Judges

The 2012 shortlist includes two debut novels, three small independent publishers, two former shortlisted authors and one previous winner. Of the six writers, four are British, one Indian and one Malaysian.

I have not yet read any of the list, but I now have Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home in my possession and plan to read it on the flight home tomorrow.

Watch this space!