The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
Other Prizes
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Kirkus Prize
Winner 2021Harrow Joy Williams
I can't fault the choice given Joy Williams contribution to literature, but felt the novel was not her best. I would have preferred Stavoci ge5 the boost, since I thought Bolla the better novel, but at the rate he is going he will win his fair share of recognition.
I am disappointed in this decision. I like Joy Williams but Harrow did not quite work for me, and I had been very much looking forward to it. There were better books, in my opinion, on this list.
I think this was a case of rewarding a lifetime of achievement. I grew up on books like this so I didn't dislike the novel but I kept wondering what someone who didn't grow up on this would be thinking. Another thought that kept ocurring to me-- I was high most of time during the period I enjoyed those books.
HA! A definite comment about these books. I do not like using annual book prizes as a lifetime achievement award, I have to say.
I am looking forward to Bolla - oddly hard to buy in UK at present (publication is next spring and unusually Amazon aren't selling the US version)
Paul wrote: "I am looking forward to Bolla - oddly hard to buy in UK at present (publication is next spring and unusually Amazon aren't selling the US version)"I thought Bolla was much better than the author's last. Here I fear that we have a case where Bolla probably passed the limit of what judges consider taste.
Bolla was excellent. Is it available through Blackwells?
I am reading Bolla now. It's very good.
I like that the characters were so flawed and the writing was excellent. I can’t remember liking a book this much with such a selfish, cruel protagonist. I’ve read novels with real villains; Arsim is just an ordinary man in so many ways, yet thoroughly despicable!
I made it through page 378 of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and had to set it aside. It was so bad I just couldn't any more.
That’s disappointing. Is it something you could pick up again after a break from it?
I’m hoping so. I really am interested in what happens to the characters.
The last chapters are the best IMO both in writing and late introduced characters.
Your review of this, Sam, perfectly summarizes my feelings about it as well. I may pick it up again in the future, but I reached a point where I just didn’t care about her sex life any more or all the melodrama over nothing.
On a more positive note, I finished Bolla. It left me with mixed feelings and emotions, which I think is a good thing.
David wrote: "Your review of this, Sam, perfectly summarizes my feelings about it as well. I may pick it up again in the future, but I reached a point where I just didn’t care about her sex life any more or all ..."Yeah, I think the main reason to read Love Songs is to try and figure out why so many reputable critics rated it so high. I hope Bolla makes the Booker International list.
Yes I hope to see Bolla on the International Booker lists. Oddly, it was left off the NBA translated literature longlist even though it was eligible. That was a glaring miss for what was otherwise a strong NBA list.
It could be a case of different lists giving different books a boost, but it also could be due to the subject matter and Statovci's lack of personal censorship in his approach. (of course that is what I love about the novel)
Very true. I also hope this makes the International Booker so it gets its own discussion thread. There’s a lot to unpack!
Intriguing shortlist for fiction:Scary Monsters
Trust
God's Children are Little Broken Things: Stories
Mecca
Scattered All Over the Earth
The Books of Jacob
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-an...
I can’t believe it’s been a year since I read Bolla. I would have guessed I read several months ago, not October 2021.I’ve read Trust, half of BoJ, and have Scary Monsters on audio.
I've read three and apparently met the author of one of the others but didn't recognize their name. It's a bit of an eclectic mix of books, almost like each of the three judges picked two.
I've only read two, pleased the Ifeakandu collection is getting some more publicity, the stories varied in force but overall worthwhile reading.
That’s on my list to read.Bolla was the surprise omission by the International Booker.
Finalists are out.Fiction
Judged by bookseller Rosa Hernandez, book critic Michael Schaub, and Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick, the finalists for the 2023 Kirkus Prize in Fiction are:
- Jamel Brinkley, Witness (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- Kelly Link, White Cat, Black Dog (Random House)
- James McBride, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (Riverhead)
- Paul Murray, The Bee Sting (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
- Jesmyn Ward, Let Us Descend (Scribner)
Nonfiction
Judged by Mark Athitakis, Anjali Enjeti, and Kirkus nonfiction editor Eric Liebetrau, the finalists for the 2023 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction are:
- Tania Branigan, Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution (Norton)
- Jennifer Homans, Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century (Random House)
- Clancy Martin, How Not To Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind (Pantheon)
- Safiya Sinclair, How To Say Babylon: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster)
- Héctor Tobar, Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino” (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- Ilyon Woo, Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom (Simon & Schuster)
Young Readers
Judged by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, high school librarian Ayn Reyes Frazee, and Kirkus young readers’ editors Mahnaz Dar and Laura Simeon, the finalists for the 2023 Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature are:
- Valerie Bolling, illustrated by Kaylani Juanita, Together We Swim (Chronicle Books)
- Roger Mello, translated by Daniel Hahn, João by a Thread (Elsewhere Editions)
- Kiran Millwood Hargrave, illustrated by Tom de Freston, Julia and the Shark (Union Square Kids)
- Jon Klassen, The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale (Candlewick)
- Ariel Aberg-Riger, America Redux: Visual Stories From Our Dynamic History (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)
- Louise Finch, The Eternal Return of Clara Hart (Little Island)
The three 2023 Kirkus Prize winners will be announced at an in-person ceremony on October 11, 2023 and livestreamed on Kirkus’ YouTube channel.
Did we record that Trust won last year?
I have read three of the finalists - Let Us Descend, Birnam Wood and Bee Sting … all getting lots of love and I would not be surprised to see Bee Sting at least Booker shortlisted and Let Us Descend win some big prizes - but none quite worked for me and in each case I was glad when the book ended (although two were rather spiked by the cinematic ending). Let Us Descend has an awful lot of power and stunning writing but too many spirits for me to fully really appreciate or enjoy it …. I read a couple of weeks back and gave only drafted a review to revisit pre publication.
I have an ARC of Let Us Descend and am planning to read it this weekend. Ward is an amazingly talented writer and I particularly loved Sing Unburied Sing, but I confess that I have not been looking forward to reading her new one. I'm concerned it's going to be quite tough. But it is certainly getting a tremendous amount of pre-publication buzz.
The Kirkus Prize is one I can't quite figure out. I'm not sure how it fits relative to the NBA, Pulitzer, NBCC, PEN-America, PEN-Faulkner, etc. - each of which has more of a predictable ethos. The Kirkus can feel like a random list of books.That's not to say it's a bad prize. In 2021, it put Bolla on the map, and last year it did the same for God's Children Are Little Broken Things: Stories. I think in both cases, it was the first prize to recognize each one.
This year's list feels very big press, big buzz. These are books I normally associate with the NBA.
Although to be honest, the NBA has gone a bit off script the last few years, or at least that's how it's seemed to me. The finalists have been a bit less big press, big buzz and a bit more quirky.
Odd the only translated book is on the children’s section
Cindy wrote: "I have an ARC of Let Us Descend and am planning to read it this weekend. Ward is an amazingly talented writer and I particularly loved Sing Unburied Sing, but I confess that I have not been looking..."For me the powerful part of it is how Ward used it to examine grief after her own tragic loss of her husband
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Cindy wrote: "I have an ARC of Let Us Descend and am planning to read it this weekend. Ward is an amazingly talented writer and I particularly loved Sing Unburied Sing, but I confess that I have no..."Yes, I can well imagine. It's part of why I am anticipating that it will be such a tough read.
I was prepared to love Let Us Descend (my first book of hers) - given all the extreme hype - but I really didn't love it. I read it between two books that were much meatier and more compelling, which unfortunately highlighted how weirdly shallow/empty/stereotypical the characters are. At least they seem to me. There were of course good things about it, and I liked it well enough, but it certainly wasn't the shattering read the hype led me to expect.
At least in the UK the publishers include in a letter to reader (at least in the ARC) which hardly helps with not creating rather high expectations. Some quotes
Dear reader, You are holding in your hand a masterpiece. This isn’t a word I use lightly or often. …
It is a text that feels almost sacred. The artistry is unparalleled. You will not read another book like this one; it is deeper and truer and more profound than anything else Jesmyn has written (and that’s saying a lot)….
I can’t wait for you to read this novel — and for you to be changed by it.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "At least in the UK the publishers include in a letter to reader (at least in the ARC) which hardly helps with not creating rather high expectations. Some quotes
Dear reader, You are holding in y..."
YES I hated that letter. It was so overblown and ridiculous. It did the book no favors at all.
Looks like the McBride won the fiction category. Tobar and Aberg-Riger won the other categories.
Have to say that the McBride is a very worthy winner. I read the book last month and loved it. Not quite as strong as Deacon King Kong but close.
I haven’t read the new McBride but I also liked Deacon. The Kirkus this year seems closer to what the NBA usually is. It’s almost like they switched places for a year.
Cindy wrote: "Have to say that the McBride is a very worthy winner. I read the book last month and loved it. Not quite as strong as Deacon King Kong but close."Just what I thought! McBride has such a warm and humane voice in all his books. I seem to mesh well with the Kirkus prize - I've read all except Let Us Descend (on the library waitlist) and Witness, which I've never heard of. I'll have to look at previous years and see if the mind meld still holds....
How does the eligibility work?It seems to be any book to get a star rating on Kirkus reviews. And as far as I can see therefore it’s open to books written from all around the world including translated fiction. Practically I assume published in the US though as means Kirkus likely to review.
And yet in its ten years I think it’s been somehow won by an author that lives in the US for 20+ years (I think 7 are US born; 3 of the 10 were born elsewhere, and moved as a child, teenager and mid 20s).
Yes GY, it's just an award that starts from the starred reviews in Kirkus Review, which they appear to give out to roughly 10% of the 10,000 or so books that they review each year (or around 1,000 books. The star means that the reviewers found the book to be of "exceptional merit." That's more or less all we know. Also interestingly, the jurors for each category are often made up of booksellers or book critics, working together with a Kirkus editor. Certainly all of that suggests a US inclination, but I don't see anything that limits the prize regionally in any way.
Other than insularity it seems.
The finalists for the Kirkus Prize have been announced:Jennine Capó Crucet, Say Hello to My Little Friend (Simon & Schuster)
Louise Erdrich, The Mighty Red (Harper/HarperCollins)
Percival Everett, James (Doubleday)
Richard Powers, Playground (Doubleday)
Rufi Thorpe, Margot’s Got Money Troubles (William Morrow/HarperCollins)
Paul Lynch, Prophet Song (Grove)
That's a pretty solid list David. The Mighty Red is not out for several weeks though.
The Mookse and the Gripes
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Cindy wrote: "I am starting Harrow shortly and very curious about it."
Read Kafka's The Hunter Gracchus and the related fragment in preparation since it is an essential allusion. I think you will like Harrow more than I. My problem was I have had my fill of dystopian fiction, and the approach to the writing reminded me of the Sixties and writers like Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut, Terry Southern, etc. which felt dated for me. I look forward to your thoughts and hope you like it.