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Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

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Original poster

Anyone else doing Booker Shortlist this year?

96 replies

NotQuiteCockney · 08/10/2006 14:24

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 ...

OP posts:

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 17/11/2006 12:38

No, I like books.

(Oh, and if I'm going to read Maupassant, I'm not going to read it in English, that would be weird. But of course I struggle with the French vocab, so am stuck ...)

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clerkKent · 17/11/2006 13:32

I don't see anything odd about reading foreign literature in translation. I did hear about someone who learned Italian just so that she could read Dante, but I think that was odd. Obviously you lose something, and more where the prose style is particularly good (e.g. Flaubert), but if the storyline is the main thing, it is less important (e.g. Maupassant). I struggled with Les Trois Contes (particularly the one with all the animals) in French, but I never tried Maupassant.

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 17/11/2006 13:57

I'll read non-English literature in translation if I don't know the foreign language, but in the case of French, I do know the language, reasonably well, so it would be weird to read it in English. (I won't read English books in French, either.)

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Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 20/11/2006 07:25

Ok, finished Mother's (Mothers?) Milk. Hmmm. I'm not sure about some bloke going around being cranky about the mother-child relationship. And the options seemed to be, either be a horrible monster, or absorb yourself totally in your child, driving yourself a bit bonkers in the process, and driving your poor husband away.

Still, I found it well-written and engaging, and certainly quite a bit more relevant to my life than the other four I've read so far (is that good or bad, though?). I think it's one that will stick in my head.

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TuttiFrutti · 20/11/2006 09:08

Have read first 100 pages of The Secret River, and really enjoying it so far, although it's not the easiest read. I find the dense language, although beautiful, quite hard going occasionally. But it's a fascinating story.

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 23/11/2006 11:25

Hey, where'd everybody go?

I've started The Inheritance of Loss, and am enjoying it, despite the presence of a mountain named after an 80s pop group. (Ok, not quite, but still ...)

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clerkKent · 24/11/2006 12:44

I have finished The Secret River. I found the last couple of chapters unconvincing, and overall I do not rate it highly.

Now on Carry Me Down, which I am enjoying more (about 100 pages in). I keep thinking "there is smothing not quire right here..."

hoxtonchick · 24/11/2006 19:28

i'm about 40 pages from the end of the night watch. i've enjoyed it, i haven't read any sarah waters before as i don't really like period stuff. am enjoying all the london bits.

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 24/11/2006 19:40

I think the Inheritance of Loss may be the best winning book I've read yet. Granted, I've disliked all the other winners.

I've been drawn off into reading a really good New Yorker though, whoops ...

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foxinsocks · 25/11/2006 19:49

I'm about to join you on this because it worked out better value getting The Night Watch in this set (from the Book People - thanks for the idea by the way).

hoxtonchick - I hadn't read any Sarah Waters either because I too am not a fan of period stuff but Tipping the Velvet was fantastic. It's really worth reading (I also enjoyed the London bits especially as I used to work near some of the streets she mentions!).

hoxtonchick · 25/11/2006 22:23

sounds good foxinsocks. i work near lots of the places mentioned in the night watch which is fun.

clerkKent · 29/11/2006 17:16

I finished Carry Me Down yesterday. Lots of creepy characters as well as the narrator. He seemed to be retreating into his own world at the end, as an escape. Haunting.

4 chapters in to Mother's Milk. So far the subject matter is much easier. I saw someone in the Sunday papers picked this as their book of the year and could not believe it did not win the Booker. It is certainly entertaining so far.

Original poster

NotQuiteCockney · 02/12/2006 07:19

WTF is up with the end of the Inheritance of Loss? WTF? WTF?

Have endings of books gone out of style, are all authors meant to suddenly randomly change voice and style, and leave everything hanging? I'm not hoping for a Dickensesque "pull it all together, everyone's happy and have a happy ending" (well, ok, I admit, it would have been lovely, I felt sorry for pretty much all the characters here, but I had no real hope for it in this book). But I wasn't really expecting a "wtf wtf wtf" sort of ending. Grr.

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hoxtonchick · 05/12/2006 10:51

i am onto the country of men now. quite liking it so far. i think i've said that about all of them though....

clerkKent · 07/12/2006 13:02

Finished Mother's Milk. Lots of middle class angst, unbelievable children, unsympathetic characters. Not my favourite!

I am now reading GRANTA 96: War Zones. It is very gloomy so far (Lebanon, Bangladesh at partitition, Hamburg 1943), and a story of bullying leading to murder. However The Observer calls Grants "indispensable".

Bink · 30/12/2006 19:21

In the Country of Men - really tried to appreciate it.

I think it suffers from what NQC noted about the Secret River didn't do - ie, it had to have Witnessing of Big Historical Event at its core. And so therefore you had, on the one hand, quite a sweet book about being a nine-year-old in Tripoli (particularly liked the senatorial Egyptian judges), and, on the other hand, ultra-stark stuff about what hangings are like to watch - which obviously a nine-year-old might, in horrible circumstances, witness - but I can't think that that wouldn't then show (a lot) in his tone. Not sure.

It made me want to go back to that Hilary Mantel book, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, which is a superb example of the subaltern (not sure if using term correctly - I mean outsider/child/non-participant) view of a some historical event - particularly as, if I remember right, exactly what the event really was, what really happened, stays unclear.

clerkKent · 02/01/2007 12:52

Bink, I read In the Country of Men after GRANTA. The book would be entirely different if it was only about being a sweet nine-year-old in Libya. But the whole thing is informed by the boy's experience of having a father involved in pro-democracy action against the state. The hanging does not influence his tone because he does not really understand what is going on - he wants to talk more about it, but is denied the opportunity. Similarly, he is not told what happened to his father and, for a time, is not even allowed to see his father. As an adult, he is looking back at the child who was prepared to betray his parents - who in turn betrayed him but not keeping him safe from the events that took place.

I thought the book just petered away at the end. I can see why it was a Booker nominee, and why it did not win.

foxinsocks · 14/01/2007 20:11

have just finished the Night Watch and loved it - didn't find it as gripping as Tipping the Velvet but was still utterly drawn in and felt involved the whole way through. Also know the bits of London she uses quite well so can picture myself walking the places she uses (which probably helps).

clerkKent · 15/01/2007 13:52

Fox - I have just started the Night Watch. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Bink · 16/01/2007 09:56

Only posting to say that I've only got the Kiran Desai to go and I know I know I must read it, but somehow it isn't reaching out to grab me.

Instead I have been reading through the entire Sherlock Holmes (Penguin collection, bargain box set from Book People) and realising that Conan Doyle is exactly Enid Blyton for grown-ups. (Which, as reviews go, is a mixed one.)

Also Julian Barnes' Arthur and George (for obvious reasons), the first three-quarters of which is superb. Runs out of steam at end, I think: but possibly the ending is downbeat and anticlimactic on purpose - that would make sense.

DarrellRivers · 23/04/2007 19:25

I know no-one has posted on this thread for ages, but I only got my collection at Christmas so am only just catching up.
The SEcret River-enjoyed greatly , but not a memorable read-interesting historical drama-
Mother's milk-slightly more special, felt llike giving the father a good slap, he irritated me, so selfish and self-obsessed, loved the narrative from the child, but felt a bit put out by the character of the mother, felt like could only be a mother or a wife , not both, although her husband was so irritating that was probably why she had begun to shut him out-loved the nanny/maternity nurse character, how i picture SWMNBN
Have just started to read Kiran DEsai and seems very promising

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