Thursday, August 1, 2013

August: She reads the Booker longlist -- usually, but not this time!

I'm breaking with tradition here.  August and September are usually reserved for tackling that baker's dozen of the Booker Prize longlist, but not this year.  I'm still in summer mode, and I'm not quite ready to pick up pen or paper for taking notes while I read.  So I'm going to be lazy for another month, and pick up the Booker books when the shortlist comes out.  

If you haven't heard yet, the longlist this year is as follows:

A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki
 Almost English, by Charlotte Mendelson
Five Star Billionaire, by Tash Aw 
Harvest, by Jim Crace
The Kills, by Richard House
The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton 
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, by Eve Harris
The Spinning Heart, by Donal Ryan
The Testament of Mary, by Colm Tóibín
TransAtlantic, by Colum McCann
Unexploded, by Alison MacLeod
We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo 

 I've already started on The Kills, which I actually ordered before the longlist came out because it sounded very offbeat and weird -- kind of right up my alley. I've finished We Need New Names (which I really loved) and TransAtlantic (which I really liked); and I have a lot of these books in my library or they've already been preordered.  

In the meantime, I'm staying in pure summer mode, reading down the tbr pile -- if one or two of these novels gets thrown into the mix, well, good enough.  I'll be back in September to read the shortlist.  For now, though, it's the last days of summer, and I'm going to be lazy.

Unexploded Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton) 
TransAtlantic Colum McCann (Bloomsbury) 
- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced#sthash.MVFNtbtq.dpuf
Unexploded Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton) 
TransAtlantic Colum McCann (Bloomsbury) 
- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced#sthash.MVFNtbtq.dpuf
Unexploded Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton) 
TransAtlantic Colum McCann (Bloomsbury) 
- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced#sthash.MVFNtbtq.dpuf
Unexploded Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton) 
TransAtlantic Colum McCann (Bloomsbury) 
- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced#sthash.MVFNtbtq.dpuf

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