The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Booker Prize for Fiction
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2021 Booker Prize Speculation
Interested to hear what you think of it - it does indeed seem to be getting very strong reviews from readers.Lot of timely UK press headlines about a Panenka this weekend as a world-class footballer did exactly what happens in the novel - tried one in a key game and it went horribly wrong. So if anyone wants to know what a failed Panenka looks like ... https://youtu.be/zQ5tI26wyhw?t=59
In reply to my tweet about this the author said he going to ask Sergio Aguero to do the audiobook.
I think Aguero will manage quite fine going forward - don't think it will quite wreck his life in the same way as Joseph from the book, given the 182 goals he did score over 5 title wins.And given he is paid about 100,000 per hour to play football may be a bit expensive an an audio-option.
Is there a discussion for the British Book Awards? The winners are being announced on Thursday.
I don't think we've ever had a thread for the British Book Awards (Nibbies), but have ended up discussing them scattered on other threads (most recently the Ferrante thread) when they overlap.You can set one up over on the Other Prizes thread
There's a Bingo card here to play along at home: https://www.thebookseller.com/sites/d...
No surprises:Best Debut Novel - Shuggie Bain
Best Novel - Hamnet
And Best Book Overall - Shuggie BainMirror and the Light misses out on Best Novel but does win most hyped advertising campaign award - genuinely (aka Marketing Strategy of the Year)
It started well over a year out from release, and took cues from major-league entertainment marketing in activations such as a billboard teaser in Leicester Square and a projection of the cover onto the Tower of London on the eve of publication.
Retail activity included backlist promotions, a new “reader’s guide” to Mantel, a blizzard of point-of sale material and a Waterstones gift card to get people buying the book as a Christmas present. Not even the lockdown, and closure of bookshops just after release, could stop the marketing juggernaut, as Fourth Estate doubled down on social media, online ads, influencer targeting and many more digital elements of the strategy.
And resulted apparently in more than 50,000 pre-orders. Can't help but feel that money might have been better spent promoting other books. Also feels a bit like an award for biggest budget.
And in a Booker link, the Publicity Campaign of Year goes to the "Year of Bernadine Evaristo" campaign from Penguin - I hadn't realised it was a deliberate campaign to turn her into a celebrity - and it certainly worked
Remember the award is run by the Bookseller magazine and is effectively the Book trades award - so other awards are for things like best agent The secretive teaser advert was very effective in building a word of mouth hype months and months before the book was published - I recall my brother in particular getting very excited about it which is how I found out about it,
The billboard was very clever - I think it would have been better given just for that. But the write up essentially emphasises rather how much money they chucked at everything rather than cleverness.Bit like praising Man City for spending their way to the Premier League title using oil money, which in reality is a far lesser achievement than a fan-owned club clinging on to League 1 status.
Really enjoying One Sky Day incidentally - it does feel a very strong contender.
Paul, unfortunately City does get lots of praise for spending their way to the top. At least Liverpool got “ours” last year. I just really hope City doesn’t pull off the treble. As long as they keep failing to win the Champions League, I have that to hold over my City friends.
The panenka video won’t play in my country so I need someone to tell me what it is. The only other play I know by name is a Hail Mary, but I don’t remember what all was involved. Mostly because I couldn’t care less. Ive tried to be a sports fan, my husband loves hockey best, as does my son-in-law and grandson (who is adorable in his hockey uniform,) my younger son’s favorite is basketball, my nephew loves baseball as did my dad, and they all like golf and football. I did try to learn football and I followed the Cleveland Indians one year, but I just don’t get the fun of watching of other people play a game. I enjoy the highlights where they show exceptional plays, but good lord is a whole game boring. It’s minutes of milling around, a play!, then more time milling around. Or it’s people running or skating really fast back and forth passing a ball or puck back and forth, and baseball is really just between batter and pitcher. Soccer never has taken off in the US, only young kids play soccer until they’re old enough for little league baseball or football, and basketball doesn’t being until middle school usually.Apologies to sports fans. I know I’m missing something, but I haven’t figured out what yet.
It is almost the opposite of a hail mary in a sense - that's trying something very difficult to produce a score from near impossible situation. The nearest equivalent to a Panenka in American Football would perhaps be one of those plays where the quarterback fakes a throw, everyone runs everywhere, and the quarterback just gently strolls, unhindered, into the endzone.In a Panenka:
A team is awarded a penalty which is a free shot on goal against the goalkeeper from 12 yards. This is awarded for a serious offence, so is essentially supposed to result in a goal.
The goalkeeper stands in the middle of a 24ft wide goal.
Usual approach is to kick the ball hard to either side of the goalkeeper, so they don't have time to react and save it. So typically the goalkeeper tries to guess which side and dives in anticipation rather than waiting to see where the ball goes.
A Panenka - named after the player who first did it in a major game - involves doing the opposite. Hitting the ball softly right down the middle.
If it goes well the goalkeeper dives to one side and looks an idiot as the ball goes where they were standing - as achieved by Antonin Panenka in 1976 (google will find videos).
If it goes wrong the goalkeeper stands still and catches the ball easily and the Panenka-taker looks an idiot - see the recent example (google Aguero Panenka - I'm sure lots of videos that aren't location restricted)
The UK and US aren't so different after all. Football dominates soccer here as well, indeed soccer is almost unheard of. Armovoid isn't so popular though :-)
And to bring this back to the 2021 Booker, Transcendent Kingdom was well written in that regard. The narrator calls it football to herself, and soccer when referring to it being played in the US.
WndyJW wrote: "I just don’t get the fun of watching of other people play a gameA lot of sports fans would I think say the same to us on this forum about the fun of reading about the lives of made up people!
I feel as sorry for people who do not get sport as for people who don't like reading.
Not sure there is anything as exciting and communally fulfilling as watching a live sports match of your favourite team in a crowd of tens of thousands.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Not sure there is anything as exciting and communally fulfilling as watching a live sports match of your favourite team in a crowd of tens of thousands"Watching a live sports match of your favourite team in a crowd of thousands rather than tens of thousands, but where those thousands are supporters in the fullest sense of the word and co-owners of a club rooted in the community, rather than prawn-sandwich-munching customers watching a billionaire's plaything.
Paul wrote: "Really enjoying One Sky Day incidentally - it does feel a very strong contender."1. TMATL billboard was genius.
2. One Sky Day has a completely different name in the US (Popisho), as well as a different cover, so it took me a while to realize that the novel was out here. I'm getting a copy because I am hearing way too much positive stuff about it.
3. Hooray for Hamnet!
1 and 3 - agreed Cindy
Cindy wrote: "1. TMATL billboard was genius.
2. One Sky Day has a completely different name in the US (Popisho)...
3. Hooray for Hamnet!"
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "1 and 3 - agreed Cindy"
1. Agreed (splashing cash on lighting up Tower of London less so)
2. I think Popisho may be a better title for marketing purposes, although the author I suspect prefers the other since she has been referring to it as This One Sky Day for some time (has been 15 years in the writing).
Popisho incidentally comes from 'poppy show', which is Jamaican patios for making a spectacle of yourself.
3. Hmmmpphhhh - one of the books that added to my dislike of long novels - Popisho is rekindling my enthusiasm though
Paul wrote: "Cindy wrote: "1. TMATL billboard was genius.
2. One Sky Day has a completely different name in the US (Popisho)...
3. Hooray for Hamnet!"
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "1 and 3 - agreed ..."
Oh p'shaw! Hamnet is not a long novel, not even close!
It is over 200 pages - that makes it too longChecking 372 - although it felt much longer
Paul wrote: "It is over 200 pages - that makes it too longChecking 372 - although it felt much longer"
Such a narrow view of a novel, Paul!
I do indeed like narrow novels!Popisho was apparently 230,000 words at one stage before it got whittled down.
To benchmark that Ducks was apparently c.285,000 words - so if you replaced the 19,000 ', the fact that's with semicolons, would also have been 230,000 words.
Well, yes ok, but all those "the fact that's" functioned almost like a rhythmic beat in the novel and were useful in that regard.
Best not to get me started on Ducks but in the Anti Long Books Bill 2021, the novel's clever use of the Search (for ';') and Replace (with ',the fact that') function will certainly feature in the Recitals.(* still looking for an MP to bring this as a Private Member's Bill)
Paul wrote: "Best not to get me started on Ducks but in the Anti Long Books Bill 2021, the novel's clever use of the Search (for ';') and Replace (with ',the fact that') function will certainly feature in the R..."I think you might be happier with a "novella" group instead of a "book" group. Just a thought.
Mod
Apologies.
Hugh wrote: "I am bored with hearing this argument so many times..."Sorry Hugh. It's my first time having the back and forth with Paul.
I see the enthusiasm for sports which is why I tried, but I couldn’t do it. It doesn’t help that I live in Cleveland whose Browns have disappointed fans for as long as I can remember and whose temporarily unnamed baseball team, formerly called the Indians made it to the playoffs the year I paid attention then lost and it was so disappointing. I think European football fans are even more rabid than any American sports fans. We don’t often have stampedes and deaths, although cities have been set on fire over wins and losses.
Somebody said that football's a matter of life and death to you, I said 'listen, it's more important than that'.One of the greatest managers of all time Bill Shankly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xodsn...
(often misquoted as him saying it should be more important, but this was actually expressed as a regret)
I think football fans in Central and South America can match, if not outdo, Europeans when it comes to soccer-related violence. The Buenos Aires derby clash between Boca Juniors and River Plate is a particularly notorious and nasty fixture. There was even the so-called 'Football War' between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, supposedly triggered off by rioting at a football match between the two countries, although there was a bit more to it and it didn;t last very long.
American football is never wider than city vs city, football/soccer is also nation vs nation which might account for the rabid fans.
Any idea on a more precise date on the Longlist announcement? July sometime?
No I have not seen anything although I would assume the 20th or 27th July. With any other prize I would suggest to directly message them (as I did for example yesterday to the RoC when people were asking about the winner date) or at least to send a general tweet - but as I think we have long established the Booker is not great at social media.
My review of This One Sky Day / Popisho; https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...I think it is a strong contender. Although in otherwise very positive reviews in the press I did notice one common theme. From four different reviews (all of which ultimately conclude it is, nevertheless, great):
There are moments when fulsome description, a digressive tendency, overemphasis or repetition cause the narrative propulsion to snag.
Ross’s editor should have pared back....
Though the novel suffers from long, laborious exposition, Ross’s joyous imagining of a peoples’ power goes a long way to redeeming the narrative doldrums.
Leone Ross’s third novel is so overstuffed with characters and plot…
Could it simply be that the book is just too ...
I am too focused on the negative comments to be interested. I know I will lose interest if the world building and introducing characters takes too long, even though I know that is part of fantasy novels. I’m also sure that I’m missing out by not putting in the time to build the world and read the book.I am so weak: I just ordered it.
Those negative comments are a bit out of context - I gave the book 5 stars and most of the reviews were positive - e.g. the WaPo one reads in full "Leone Ross's third novel is so overstuffed with characters and plot that readers will either close it in frustration or embrace it for the author's verbal gusto and brilliant, kaleidoscopic scene-setting."It definitely isn't one for coherent world building as in a typical fantasy novel (say Mordew) with a glossary at the back and pseudo-scientific rationale - this is magic realism, it's more it just keeps adding more and more things.
There is also a nice nod to One Hundred Years of Solitude where the Macondo residents are more impressed by ice than they are by flying carpets, when the one thing that baffles people here, who bat not an eyelid at people who sprout wings, is a large video screen.
The positive reviews from members here swayed me. I do like magical realism done well.
Hi All, Recently finished Lean Fall Stand, Panenka, This One Sky Day, Klara and the Sun. All contenders for The Booker. Have a massive TBR pile but feeling uninspired. What is everyone's top choice for books (that have already been published) that you believe will make it on to the list?
Its worth looking at the link on the first post on this thread (if you have not already) and casting your votes there as this "wisdom of the crowds" approach has worked well in a number of years - and is also a good indication of how "predictable" the longlist is.
Has Lean, Fall, Stand gotten good reviews?
And by Hugh and I.
Has anyone mentioned Light Perpetual: A Novel? I really enjoyed Golden Hill and just read a good review of Light Perpetual.
I liked Golden Hill a lot and also Red Plenty which to me (but not the author it seems!) was a novel as well. Light Perpetual was well written but has a major flaw, in that the central concept of the book doesn’t really work I think.
Yes conceptually extremely flawed I think - writing is very good though
I gave it three stars but more because it was very disappointing in terms of what sounded a very interesting premise, and I prefer concepts to writing (Goldsmiths over Costa).But if one views it as what it is, rather than how it has been marketed, an account of English (mainly London) history through the varied lives of a generation who were children in WW2, then it is very good.
I had a look at the list of, I think, 43 books. That's what prompted me to read Second Place. I started reading Light Perpetual a couple of weeks ago and couldn't get into it. I will try again because I think the idea is an interesting one. Just not yet.
Really thoroughly enjoying Project Hail Mary on Audible at the moment.
May have to go back to the list of 43...
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The Mookse and the Gripes
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If I remember correctly, I predicted four of the thirteen. Really hoping to do better this year.