What would you like to see on the Booker longlist next week?

[Cocodrillo]

The list is announced on the 29th. I think Sadie Jones' Outcast deserves to be on it for sure. Any more for any more?

Stunbled across this trhead and now have Child44 by the side of my bed waiting to be read, trying to find books that both me and DH will read so this ones looks like it will fit the bill.

Glad it got there OK, Coco. dovegreyreader absolutely loved it - personally I found the clothes business a bit over-laboured but it did the trick for her.

Interested to hear your take on Child 44 - so many people seem to have been so rude about it!

Have just tried (and failed) to snag a copy off ReadItSwapIt, ho hum. Have frustratingly run dry on longlist books now, although expecting a copy of The White Tiger through the post soon. Not meant to be spending money this month but postage on book-swapping doesn't count, right?

I hardly dare check my bank balance at the moment. My book budget has to be cut back.

I've just signed up for an OU course, and have had to get a Windows lap-top so that I can do it... Ouch.

Means me and DH can both be on the internet at the same time now though. We're so so sad.

Re Child 44 it IS briliant, but really grizzly in parts. I was surprised I enjoyed it so much actually, but its a real thriller/page-turner. Hope you enjoy it, FiveGoMad and Flossie.

Book budget - hence trying to find books that we will both like, it is my only really self indulgent thing.

Hey, great that you have a DH that reads, FiveGoMad! Every year I optimistically buy DH books that I think he will like and every year he exclaims enthusiastically, puts them on the shelf and never opens them again..

Just had email from library that The Northern Clemency has FINALLY arrived. 700 pages before Tuesday? ha ha ha.

What do you think of Northern Clemency, Floss?

I've just finished it. My opinion: brilliant book, really engaging, but Hensher's editor has let him down bigtime.

You've done well at reading shortlisted titles in advance!

There are 3 that I would like to read and 3 that I don't.

which three?

The Clothes on their Backs
Northern Clemency
A Fraction of the Whole

Coco, I really, really wanted to like the Hensher... but I completely agree about the editing. I found the proliferation of characters that were "a bit wrong in the head" a bit too much. A really impressive achievement though in this short-attention-span era - sustains the plot ad keeps you engaged right up to the end.

I'm wondering whether I will get around to reading the four that didn't make the shortlist that I hadn't already read (Girl in a Blue Dress, The Enchantress of Florence, Netherland, Child 44). Probably will read the first since I bought a copy off Green Metropolis, and possibly the third despite the hype but... not sure I'll manage the others. I haven't yet read a Rushdie because I find him too objectionable as a person (I know that's a stupid reason not to read his books), and Stalinist Russia isn't really my cup of tea.

Just started The White Tiger, which I don't think is going to be exactly a light read - clever, but bleak.

FiveGoMad, The Secret Scripture is a really special book - it sounds completely grim and miserable but in fact it's beautiful. Do give it a shot if you can bear it!

There's a shortlist reading at the South Bank Centre on the eve of the prize announcement - dithering over whether to go or not, am not usually in London on Mondays so it would be extra money for the train ticket....

Also what looks to be a really interesting exhibition at the V&A which I'm certainly going to try to get to.

What do you think of the White Tiger?
I've just finished the book you lent me, I'll get it back to you this week. Quite liked it, and glad I read it (thanks for lending me! ), but not a Booker winner, I agree.

If I thought it was bleak after 50 pages, I didn't know how lucky I was!! I don't really know what I thought, to be honest... it is really pretty grim, and all the worse because the narrator's tone is sort of lightly sardonic throughout most of the book, which is just SO far away from what is happening.

I found the subject matter so disturbing that I can't really decide whether it's a good book or not (and not sure I can face re-reading to make my mind up!!).

Could lend you that one as well if you don't already have a copy..? I got mine off ReadItSwapIt. Then you can hang on to the Linda Grant and post two back at once (assuming it's cheaper that way?).

Just the Steve Toltz to go now on the shortlist :-) I am first in the queue at the library but only went up to first yesterday (um, not that I am at all obsessed about all this...) so I guess it may not come in before the final announcement.

I am hooked on Child44

It's amazing isn't it, FiveGoMad? It really surprised me.

Thanks for the offer Floss, but I think I can get hold of it from the library fairly easily. I'm not sure whether I fancy it, especially if it's gruelling. I'm having some light relief with Sophie Hannah's latest at the mo.

Random trivia: Sophie Hannah used to live in a flat in the same block as us a few years ago (not that we ever met). Her first novel includes scenes set in a block of flats that is transparently that one - makes for slightly unnerving reading!

I've got that one on my TBR list - and Little Face on the shelf.

I would definitely not recommend The White Tiger as a light read.

I'd love to see your bookshelves, I imagine them like Waterstones Piccadilly

Oh, Coco, I wish. We have bookshelves from the great Nordic god of flatpack, which don't properly fill the (limited) space we have available and hence are hideously doublestacked.

Most of what's in my house is in my LibraryThing collection, so in a virtual sense, you can see my bookshelves! I haven't catalogued all the books I left at my mum's though....

I'm reading Lemony Snicket's "autobiography" while I wait for A Fraction of the Whole to come into the library.