Anyone else doing Booker Shortlist this year?

[NotQuiteCockney]

I don't know if DH has remembered to get me the shortlist for my birthday, or whether I'll have to sort it out myself, but is anyone else doing the shortlist again? I (finally) finished the 2005 list, and am somewhat eager to start the 2006 one ... I haven't read anything by any of the authors before, which is a nice change ...

i read the bathroom scene very quickly.

I was not in a good mood when I started the book, and that scene was just too too horrific. There isn't anything even vaguely similar in the book. There are horrific bits, but not anything with that particular horrific theme.

A bit late to the party I know, but what a good idea! I'll see if I can fit it in! Love reading, just wish there were more time! Sigh...........

um, am on page 125 of carry me down, and not much seems to have happened. more narrative drive needed i think.

Arthur & George was of course fiction based on fact.

It's my birthday next week and I keep getting told not to buy any books [looks hopeful]. I also mentioned Slightly Foxed to dw as a possible b'day present about 6 months ago after NQC mentioned it. However I am up-to-date with Granta, which I think is getting better after a poor year or two under the new editor.

Finished Mother's Milk. Dh, who has some strange hotline into knowing about authors (suspect has to do with shady London poker playing past) says St Aubyn has had some nasty stuff happen to him "and writes out of exorcism" - which would explain both the bleakness, and the bitter funny bits, and the bits I couldn't get a handle on, which were the long ruminative analyses of internal landscape ("he thought that the fish were like strange planets, half in tune with the cicadas, but also echoing in the flash of their scales his own anxieties as they flitted from shadow to shadow" - I made that up, but that's the style).

Also that Mother's Milk is a continuation of the three earlier novels, & Anthony Powell-like have a shared character cast with those.

All most interesting but I may be too shallow.

HC, not much does happen. A bit does, but not quite enough. I'm pretty sure a big point of the book is the strangeness of the character, but what is up with him? 11-12 is a weird age. Is that the thing?

I'm still on the weekend's papers. Will no doubt start another book this week.

OK, so which is the easiest read of all the shortlist? I've just got my package from the Book People and want to start with something easy to get into.

am reading Night Watch - I just loved Fingersmith - damn good. Hated Line of Beauty - didn't finish it, thought it was really over-rated nonsense.
didn't like Ukranian Tractor either - did love Saturday Ian McKewan though. Given this is my "taste" - big Jane Austen fan too - recommendations welcome!

I've found Night Watch and Secret River much easier than Carry Me Down.

Yes, Secret River is probably the easiest to get into. You get all the children (with names) of an over-numerous family right away, which is not very far from eg Nanny McPhee. And it doesn't makes any assumptions re historical knowledge (eg that "pure" [as a noun] meant dogpoo). Is it going to be good though?

Actually, Secret River looks the easiest judging just from the cover, so I'm not too surprised by your comments. Thanks for the help!

Bink, I did think it was pretty good. The characterization is a bit shallow, but still interesting, and the plot is definately interesting. The ending's a bit shite, but tolerably so.

Gah, I've tried to start In the Country of Men. Fascinated to have a book set in Libya, but the prose style is not doing it for me, to put it politely. Flowery much?

I'll keep trying in a bit, but I've wandered off into a New Yorker for the moment.

Have just started "The Inheritance of Loss" and am finding it really hard going. Initial impressions: very contrived and self-conscious prose. But will persevere.

Anybody else reading this?

I'll probably do it next ... I tend to save the winner for near the end, and then be soundly disappointed by it ...

In the Country of Men gets better. And at least it's short.

Not the best thing to read right after Carry Me Down, ok, this narrator is 9, not 11, but otherwise ... gah ...

I wasn't really impressed by The Secret River. They've chosen that that publishing format where the back cover & first two pages are paragraph excerpts of rave reviews - which raises certain expectations.

And then it's a bit, well, Catherine Cookson (which may be doing her a disservice) - a Sweeping Saga of of Sydney's Difficult Birth, which will Shock and Enrapture You By Turns.

Nothing at all wrong with being shocked and enraptured, but I want that done in service of some big proper idea (with depth), not just a great big canvas (London! Sydney! the whole coast and an entire river! so much landscape for your £7.99!). I think it was just all surface, sadly, and somehow needn't have been.

Anyone want to get me to see it differently? As I am open to ideas.

Barry Unsworth does historical novels rather well, I seem to remember. Perhaps I should go back to his.

Hmmm, I liked the fact it was reasonably naturalistic, our characters didn't Witness Important Events, not much anyway. I liked the ambiguity, people weren't Evil or Good, by and large, they were just people. (Well, ok, the main characters weren't Good or Evil.)

I did think the Aboriginal folks were a bit, well, a bit whitewashed. I did have immense sympathy for them, and not much for the white folks, but I felt a bit manipulated into that position.

I finished Country of Men. I liked it reasonably much. Made me want to know more about Libya (although, lord knows, didn't make me want to visit!). Tried to start Mother's Milk, but have been distracted into newspapers/Granta. I'll read it next week, I'm sure.

Me! Although still trying to finish 2005's , currently reading On Beauty, which leaves Arthur and George and the other one with the brownish cover, then on to the 2006 list.

Reading the blurb on the books I am more fired up about this list than last year's so might get through it a bit quicker this time.

Bumping for clerkKent ... I'm still on my weekend papers, but will soon start Mothers Milk properly, unless I get drawn into Granta or the New Yorker ...

NQC you have made my day - first time I have been bumped.

I started The Secret River this morning - chosen from the 6 by the cover and the blurb. It has not grabbed me yet.

I just finished Amsterdam by Ian McEwan - booker winner 9 years ago. The twist in the last chapter wasn't much of a surprise. None of it quite rang true for me. I remember a Maupassant short story about heartlessness (I read it aloud to school assembly) that made much the same point.

I don't know if I've read Amsterdam. Probably not?

(And I keep trying to read Maupassant, but wimping out. His vocab is a bit tricky/dated.)

I don't think I've loved any of this year's list yet. Hopefully I'll fall for one of the last two ...

Ok, I've started Mother's Milk, and am enjoying it, sorta. The characters are a bit shallow, not very subtle stuff, at least so far. But it dashes along at a good pace, and is well-written ...

I just had a look for the Maupassant story on the web and I found this: Short Stories - complete texts of stories online. Does anybody read large chunks of text on screen? Would you print it out? I don't think I would do either...

Meanwhile The Secret River still has not grabbed me. I don't care much what happens to William or Sal.