The 2019 Booker Prize longlist

Ari Meermans

MacAllister's Official Minion & Greeter
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Messages
12,852
Reaction score
3,041
Location
Not where you last saw me.
The 2019 Booker Prize longlist is up.

Literary Hub Article: "Here’s the 2019 Booker Prize longlist (with almost no Americans, for a change)."

Of the 13 books that make up the “Booker Dozen,” as the longlist is sometimes called, eight are women and five are men. The longlist includes two former Booker Prize winners (Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie) and one debut novel, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, The Serial Killer, as well as Valeria Luiselli’s first novel written in English.

From the 2019 Booker Prize press release:

In the press announcement, Chair of Judges Peter Florence advised: If you only read one book this year, make a leap. Read all 13 of these. There are Nobel candidates and debutants on this list. There are no favorites; they are all credible winners. They imagine our world, familiar from news cycle disaster and grievance, with wild humor, deep insight and a keen humanity. These writers offer joy and hope. They celebrate the rich complexity of English as a global language. They are exacting, enlightening and entertaining. Really—read all of them.
 

Helix

socially distancing
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
11,676
Reaction score
12,032
Location
Atherton Tablelands
Website
snailseyeview.medium.com
Interesting list. Of those, I've only read Lanny. I enjoyed it -- it's a very thin plot wrapped up in incandescent writing -- but I don't think it's the best novel of the year. (But I'm not a Booker judge. And we need a pinch of salt emoji.)

Now adding all the ones I haven't read to my Petronas Towers of TBR piles.
 

Ed_in_Bed

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 16, 2017
Messages
292
Reaction score
120
I read the extract of the winning book on Amazon. This was on page four...

"she isn’t ready to forgo cigarettes so leans on the riverside wall and lights one, hates herself for it
the adverts told her generation it would make them appear grown-up, glamorous, powerful, clever, desirable and above all, cool
no one told them it would actually make them dead
she looks out at the river as she feels the warm smoke travel down her oesophagus soothing her nerves while trying to combat the adrenaline rush of the caffeine"


For what bizarre and arcane literary reason would the author use 'oesophagus' instead of 'trachea'? I think it's a mistake, personally.
 

Elle.

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Messages
1,272
Reaction score
734
Location
United Kingdom
Just finished Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other (this year's winner) — absolutely loved it. Loved the concept of the book with each chapter being three short stories about three interconnected women, plus another overall thread that links all the chapters together. Truly deserved win. I actually met Bernardine at a literary festival a few months ago and she is such a lovely and approachable person.

Personally I feel that they only gave the prize to Margaret Atwood as well because of her overall body of work instead of being judged purely on The Testaments. The Handmaid's Tale is a brilliant, thought-provoking book but for me The Testaments was just ok. Purely based on this book, I don't feel she should have won.