Reading the Booker Prize Longlist #12 – Booker Prize reading challenge round – up

It’s been 4 month since the Booker prize longlist was announced, the seasons have changed and many obscure books were consumed in that time. I didn’t want to finish this challenge with a simple review of the last book on my list, instead I wanted to discuss the winners, the shortlist, and my thoughts coming out of this challenge. I had so many positive and negative thoughts throughout this process that I wanted to share with you.

Reading the Booker Prize Longlist #11 – Margaret Atwood’s Booker winning The Testaments

‘The corrupt and blood-smeared fingerprints of the past must be wiped away to create a clean space for the morally pure generation that is surely about to arrive. Such is the theory.

But among these bloody fingerprints are those made by ourselves, and these can’t be wiped away so easily.’

Reading the Booker Prize longlist #10 – Bernadine Evaristo’s Booker winning Girl, Woman, Other book review

‘What if she’s slated by the critics? dismissed with a consensus of one-star reviews, what was the great National thinking allowing this rubbishy imposter into the building?

of course she knows she’s not an imposter, she’s written fifteen plays and directed over forty, and as a critic once wrote, Amma Bonsu is a safe pair of hands who’s known to pull off risks

what if the preview audiences who gave standing ovations were just being kind?

oh shut up, Amma, you’re a veteran battle-axe, remember?’

Reading the Booker prize longlist #8 – Lucy Ellman, Ducks, Newburyport book review

The fact that…this book is so overwhelmingly long and I couldn’t bring myself to finish it.

Reading the Booker Longlist #6 – An Orchestra of Minorities, Chigozie Obioma

‘Death will come, unannounced, suddenly, and perch on the sill of his world. It will have come unexpectedly, noiselessly, without interrupting the seasons, or even the moment necessarily’