Archive for the ‘Booker Prize Shortlist’ Category
Sarah Waters – The Night Watch
Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch is the third novel I’ve read by her, and it’s as different as the previous two as it can be. While one was a gothic ghost story set in Warwickshire (The Little Stranger), the other was a Victorian thriller (Fingersmith). And then we have this: a book set (mostly in) […]
Filed under: Booker Prize Shortlist, Books 2010, Complete Booker, Guardian 1000, Historical Fiction, Orange Prize Shortlist, Review, Sarah Waters | 16 Comments
Tags: London, Sarah Waters, World War II
David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
In January 2009, I was introduced to the wonderful world of David Mitchell by a friend, who lent me the surreal number9dream – a book I absolutely loved. She proceeded to lend me Cloud Atlas next, and it’s been sitting abandoned on my unread shelf for about a year now, as I’ve been reluctant to pick […]
Filed under: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Booker Prize Shortlist, Books 2010, British Book Awards Book Of The Year, Complete Booker, David Mitchell, Guardian 1000, National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Review, Richard & Judy Book Group, Sci-Fi Challenge, Sci-Fi/Fantasy | 29 Comments
Tags: David Mitchell, Dystopia
Simon Mawer – The Glass Room
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2009, Simon Mawer’s immense novel revolves around The Glass Room, or, Der Glasraum: A modernist house resulting from an architect whose maxim is ornamentation is crime. The conception of the house happens when Victor (a Jew, who owns an automobile manufacturing company) and Liesel Landauer are gifted a plot […]
Filed under: Booker Prize Shortlist, Books 2009, Historical Fiction, Review, Simon Mawer | 13 Comments
Tags: Architecture, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Simon Mawer, World War II
J.M. Coetzee – Summertime
And so, my Booker shortlist (2009) journey continues with Coetzee’s fictional memoir, which completes the trilogy, already containing Boyhood and Youth. I haven’t read either of them, so, I wasn’t sure what to expect with Summertime, although my experience with Coetzee told me it wouldn’t be a very “summertime” book. Needless to say, I was […]
Filed under: Autobiography/Memoir, Booker Prize Shortlist, Books 2009, J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize Winners, Review | 10 Comments
Tags: J.M. Coetzee, South Africa
The Booker Half Dozen
Is actually a half-dozen. So, the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize was announced today, and I sheepishly admit that I haven’t read a single book that made the shortlist. Considering I only read two books on the long list, I don’t think that’s incredibly surprising. I intended to read the entire shortlist when it […]
Filed under: Booker Prize Shortlist | 12 Comments
Lloyd Jones – Mister Pip
Set in Papua New Guinea, in the 1990s, this book is narrated by Matilda, an adolescent, who witnesses the horrors of civil war first hand. The book opens with many people fleeing the island, and it being lost to the outside world, as the ‘redskins’ (the government soldies) and the ‘rambos’ (rebels) advances. One white […]
Filed under: ALA Best Books For Young Adults, Booker Prize Shortlist, Books 2009, Commonwealth Writers Prize, General Fiction, Lloyd Jones, Review, Richard & Judy Book Group | 12 Comments
Tags: Civil Unrest, Lloyd Jones, Papua New Guinea
Sarah Waters – Fingersmith
It’s the 1860s, and Lant Street, a dodgy street near Southwark Bridge, is inhabited by petty thieves, small-time burglars, piddling swindlers and the like. Here lives Sue Trinder, a seventeen year old, with Mrs. Sucksby (her guardian), and Mr. Ibbs (a man who fences stolen items), along with a bunch of infants, unwanted in this […]
Filed under: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Booker Prize Shortlist, Books 2009, Guardian 1000, Orange Prize Shortlist, Review, Sarah Waters, Suspense/Thriller | 9 Comments
Tags: London, Sarah Waters, Victorian Society
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