The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Booker Prize for Fiction
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2023 Booker Prize speculation
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Yahaira
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Apr 21, 2023 08:36AM
a little random but, is Juno Loves Legs eligible?
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I think so. It looks like the Harvill Secker edition was published in March.
ok! it sounds interesting, but it wasn't in the list
Suggest you add it - the list is crowd-compiled.
I know, but wanted to double check before I add something that isn't eligible
I finally got around to reviewing the new Guy Gunaratne https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I have been holding off for weeks waiting for other views but oddly no one else seems to be reviewing it either here or on NetGalley - although it seems to be gathering new author blurbs every day (Isabel W I see now).
I would be surprised not to see this on the Booker longlist but had a bit of a strong reaction to it myself which I am not sure was what the author intended or not
I suspect I will revisit this book once published and after reading author interviews and definitely if longlisted.
My first pass review of Isabel Waidner’s latest https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I will await Paul setting out everything I have missed.
Excellent review, GY!I see you gave up on any hope of anonymity and claimed your twin brother. Paul, where is your review?
I can’t wait to get this novel.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "My first pass review of Isabel Waidner’s latest https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I will await Paul setting out everything I have missed."
The Orton connection makes this tempting, loved his diaries and find his plays fascinating.
I finished Cuddy and loved it. It’s Ben Myers best book. He employed different styles, moved through centuries with repeating names and things, but none it felt gimmicky. I will be stunned if this isn’t shortlisted and not just because it’s very British, which as a British prize is fair to have in its favor.As GY pointed out Myers has stiff competition: Hungry Ghosts, Losing the Plot, Corey Fah…, Victory City, 2 Cormac McCarthy novels, but I still think this has a very good chance. Of course it’s all up to the judges.
Alwynne wrote: "Cindy wrote: "Chain Gang All-Stars is getting a ridiculous amount of buzz over here but does not at all sound like my kind of thing. I suspect I will only read it if it is longlisted."The ARC is currently on UK Netgalley but the description didn't appeal to me either."
Might be worth having a second look at Chain-Gang All-Stars as I started it today and am loving it. It *is* violent but not gratuitously so as violence is part of the message. It actually reminds me a bit of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? though more explicitly politicised about race, capitalism, mass entertainment and the prison complex.
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara Stacker are great characters and I'm all in on this book!
It is being published in the US on Monday. I will read it.
I really disliked it for the first chapter or two but admired it by the end. The footnotes in particular are very clever how they mix IRL fact, invention and part fact /part fiction. It is very US centric though - I really could not see much cross over to UK prisons and I do know quite a few people who have spent a lot of time there in let’s say a range of different functions.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "The footnotes in particular are very clever how they mix IRL fact, invention and part fact /part fiction.."meanwhile:
Booker 2023 judge writes: "I draw a very sharp line between fiction and nonfiction"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202....
To be fair to Shapiro (who I have met many times and who is charming and generous as well as phenomenally clever), he's making that distinction in his own academic work, he's not setting that as a criteria for fiction or for the judging of the Booker: "On the other hand, I understand how deeply people want to connect with Shakespeare the man, with Anne Hathaway, with Judith Shakespeare: they lived, they died, their internal lives went largely unrecorded. And it takes a talented writer to bring that to life. But that’s not the stuff that I do. I don’t write that; but somebody needs to.”
So I think he's supporting fiction's ability to imagine creatively things that historians can't access.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I really disliked it for the first chapter or two but admired it by the end."The first chapter is hard for the sheer barbarity, I agree. I admire it and am also caught up in the storytelling.
Yes, it is very US-centric, not just in the capitalist prison complex but also the massive amount of money that is involved in mass entertainment like Superbowl (though, admittedly, I know practically nothing about sport).
It was less the barbarity than it read exactly like part of the now rather cliched Hunger Games inspired genre. It’s doing some clever things though even in the way it inspires feelings (positive and negative) in readers just like the fictional TV show does in the book.
Yes, it's definitely using genre devices and techniques at the plot level: I've just got to where there can't be two Colossal Links in the same Chain in the upcoming season... But it's cleverly woven into the political commentary so I don't mind these commercial hooks. And I like the energy behind the writing and the whole project - it's not 'nice' or bland or grey.
When you say it’s very US centric though is that a negative? It’s absolutely fair to criticize the prison industrial complex in the US, there are several US books and films about the inhumanity of the Capitalism of prisons, but that a book is US centric shouldn’t be a problem for UK readers. In fact, the way bigotry has taken the reigns in both the US and the UK these type of books and films should be seen in the UK as cautionary tales so that men like the insufferable Jason Rees Moggs don’t see dollar signs and move to make prisons profitable there as well.The US used to have the highest incarceration rate in the world, now we’re second to China and there is a direct link between the harsher school discipline for boys of color-suspension and expulsion, and the likelihood of incarceration.
I won’t read this book because knowing this happens it awful enough. I don’t want to go be in that world.
I'm not finding the US setting a negative, Wendy, and agree about the warning. It's a pretty resistant book, as we'd expect, so we could see reading it as part of a protest. But I wouldn't force it on anyone.
Roman Clodia wrote: "To be fair to Shapiro (who I have met many times and who is charming and generous as well as phenomenally clever), he's making that distinction in his own academic work, he's not setting that as a ..."Isn't that bizarre as well? He has some distinction as to what is absolutely true and what is inferred / guessed / supposed / remembered, all of which blur that line. The Guardian to be fair does have a habit of writing interview headlines that aren't always a direct quote so perhaps he didn't say or mean this.
I hope it's hyperbole. Otherwise it's a massively disappointing statement from a judge for a literary prize.
I guess I’m thick because I don’t see what Shapiro said that was wrong? He doesn’t write fiction novels, he said he thinks they’re great and understands why people want to read and write them, but he’s not a fiction writer himself. He puts his energies into finding out what is real not writing sentimental stories about what would be nice if it were real.
Drawing a hard line between boundaries like fiction and non-fiction doesn't bode well for writers who blur those boundaries. Labatut comes to mind, but it could apply more broadly. It implies he's not on board with writers playing with form and genre. Hopefully we are taking his comments out of context, but it's still not a good sign.
I'm completely with Wendy here: Shapiro is saying that as a scholarly literary historian, his professional integrity is based on not allowing fiction into his historical reconstructions of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare and The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. He's completely supportive of readers' desire for a personal, more sentimental engagement with Shakespeare's family and supports other writers' fictional projects such as Hamnet.
Drawing a line between his own academic work and the writing of others seems perfectly fair. He's not setting this as a criteria for the judgement of Booker or other fiction.
It sounds like he's happy for someone to be writing the fiction-blurring stuff, just not him.I totally identified with what he said about Maggie O'Farrell's work. I haven't read Hamnet because I know I would hate it. I really dislike facty-fictioning and fictive-facting. That does not mean I (or Shapiro) am not on board with writers playing with form and genre. It's just a subgenre that I dislike. Obviously he puts it a bit more nicely than that!
I think we are all admittedly taking his quote out of context, trying to read too much into it as a signal from one of the judges. Great points on O'Farrell.
I'm with R. C. and Emily on this one too. And also a 'Hamnet' avoider!
Right, Shapiro had a lot of praise for the fictional Hamnet, but it sounds like he’s wary of sentimentality blurring the lines between fiction, which he supports, but doesn’t write, and history, which he does. Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait are all products of O’Farrell’s imagination. Shapiro can’t write what he guesses or hopes life was like for Shakespeare, he extrapolates from what he does know.There’s room for both as he clearly stated.
I want to read historical books about Shakespeare and I enjoyed Hamnet, but I knew what I was reading was fiction.
It's May and, as GY notes on instagram, Booker season. I hope we see some unexpected things on the longlist, but I've started thinking about what a predictable list would look like. Here are my early thoughts on a longlist that would appeal to Booker die-hards looking for a traditional Booker list:- Old God's Time - Sebastian Barry
- Birnam Wood - Eleanor Catton
- The New Life - Tom Crewe
- Fire Rush - Jacqueline Crooks
- Hungry Ghosts - Kevin Jared Hosein
- Demon Coperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
- Yellowface - R.F. Kuang
- August Blue - Deborah Levy
- In Ascension - Martin MacInnes
- Cursed Bread - Sophie Mackintosh
- Cuddy - Benjamin Myers
- Victory City - Salman Rushdie
- In Memoriam - Alice Winn
What would be some other predictable choices?
You've given up on Cormac McCarthy David?
What about A Spell of Good Things? A lot of people seemed very surprised that it wasn't on the WP longlist.
I actually had The Passenger on the list, but replaced it with the Crooks right before posting.
I'm feeling like both Birnam Wood and Cursed Bread are unlikely to be longlisted, although that's obviously a subjective reaction to reading them.
I just finished The Pole by twice-winner Coetzee. Not yet out in English (in Spanish and Dutch yes), but should be published just in time to be eligible. I would be happy to see it on the list, but wouldn't rank it among the 4-5 top favourites
From what I can see the UK publication is 13 October (US is September) and also in the UK it’s going to be published with five other short stores so it’s doubly ineligible.
I was only thinking today (as I saw a post about an event) that A Spell of Good Things had a good chance. I will be disappointed if Derek O and Isabel W are not there.
I would love to see both of those on the longlist too.How does the new Waidner compare to SKG in terms of accessibility and readability for a wider Booker audience?
It’s more mature than her previous work in my view.
David wrote: "It's May and, as GY notes on instagram, Booker season. I hope we see some unexpected things on the longlist, but I've started thinking about what a predictable list would look like. Here are my ear..."Totally agree with In Memoriam, Hungry Ghosts and The New Life (my prediction for the win).
Didn't like Birnam Wood and although I liked Yellowface will be really surprised to see it on the longlist.
Chain-gang All Stars? Just started reading this. Feels fresh, relevant and full of vitality.
Agree re Chain Gang - RC raised it further up the thread before we discussed James Shapiro
I’m really excited to read Chain-Gang All-Stars, but something about it (maybe the marketing?) isn’t screaming Booker to me. Would love to see it though - I loved Friday Black.I’m wondering which books could be on the longlist that won’t have been released by the time of the announcement.
There seem to be a few contenders:
The Fraud, by Zadie Smith
The MANIAC, by Benjamin Labatut
The Vaster Wilds, by Lauren Groff
I’m also curious about whether Paterson Joseph’s Peep Show connection to Robert Webb improves or dampens his chances of snagging a nomination for The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatious Sancho.
I was thinking the same thing about the Adjei-Brenyah, Ben - at least in terms of marketing and positioning itself for a Booker Prize. But I haven't read the book yet. It's gotten some fairly good reviews.I haven't paid as much attention to anticipated fall releases as I usually do. The three you mentioned should hopefully get in the discussion. I'd be curious if others here with an ear to the ground know of other titles.
We are only days away from the Pulitzer announcement, and this is the first year that I can be 99% about a winner--I am confident it will be Demon Copperhead. To win the Pulitzer AND the Booker in the same year? I just can't imagine it, which is why it doesn't come to mind for Booker. But I suppose it could still make the long list. Thoughts?
That would be an interesting addition for sure, Joy.
Very interesting. I must admit I have never heard of the author but seems like his debut was a bestseller. I can also see it causing some debate here. 700 plus pages and a book set in India by I think someone who studied there for around 2-3 years more than 50 years ago?
I am sure it would cause debate here, as per usual, but I really love the book so far. It's almost like a history of medicine in India over the course of multiple generations, starting around 1900, focused on one family and a few doctors. I am unsure if it is a type of book that would be Booker nominated since I'm no expert on that sort of thing. It is the type of book that should win some type of award in my opinion.
Last year's Booker winner wasn't even on the Listopia, so the more ideas definitely the better.The Covenant of Water is giving Anthony Doerr meets We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies meets...Valli? vibes.
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