Well we're almost at the end of the year, and I've finally managed to finish off this year's Man Booker Challenge! It's not that I've been putting this one off, it's just there was an inexplicably long waiting list for it at the library so I've only just got hold of it in order to … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2015: The Year of the Runaways
Woodsie Girl
Man Booker Challenge 2015: The Fishermen
So, in keeping with tradition (yes, four years totally counts as a tradition!), I failed to read all six shortlisted books before the announcement of the (very well-deserved) winner this year. However, never one to quit, I'm still going to read and review the two books I have left! The last one may be a … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2015: The Fishermen
Man Booker Challenge 2015: A Brief History of Seven Killings
Well, the Booker Prize winner announcement is tonight, and as I'm only halfway through my fourth book off the shortlist unfortunately I've failed my challenge (to read the lot before the winner is announced) yet again! Ah well, one year I'll manage it... As mentioned, I'm only halfway through this one but I thought I'd … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2015: A Brief History of Seven Killings
Man Booker Challenge 2015: Satin Island
Man Booker Challenge 2015 Book 3: Satin Island, Tom McCarthy Set in contemporary London,Satin Island is a work reflecting disjointed times. A story about U. - a ‘corporate anthropologist’ working for an elite consultancy. U.’s employers have set him two tasks. First, he must assist in the launching of a great, epoch-defining project which no one, least … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2015: Satin Island
Man Booker Challenge 2015: A Spool of Blue Thread
A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler ‘It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon…’ This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that day in July 1959. The whole family on the porch, relaxed, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2015: A Spool of Blue Thread
Man Booker Challenge 2015: A Little Life
Another year, another Man Booker Shortlist challenge! Once again, this year I am attempting to read and review all six titles shortlisted for the Booker, before the winner is announced on 13th October. Will I manage to complete the entire shortlist before the deadline? Well, I’ve never managed it yet, but there’s always a first … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2015: A Little Life
LBC Dystopia – Book 13 – Uglies write-up
Date: Wednesday 28th January 2015 Venue: Crowd of Favours, Harper Street, Leeds Discussing: UGLIES by SCOTT WESTERFIELD Blurb (from Amazon): Tally lives in a world where your sixteenth birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases all your flaws, transforming you from an 'Ugly' into a 'Pretty'. She is on the eve of this important event, … Continue reading LBC Dystopia – Book 13 – Uglies write-up
Man Booker Challenge 2014: The Narrow Road to the Deep North
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan Taking its title from one of the most famous books in Japanese literature, written by the great haiku poet Basho, Flanagan’s novel has as its heart one of the most infamous episodes of Japanese history, the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in World War II. … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2014: The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Man Booker Challenge 2014: How to be both
How to be both, by Ali Smith How to be both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2014: How to be both
Man Booker Challenge 2014: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking, so why, now she's a young woman at college, doesn't she talk very much at all? She used to have a sister, Fern, the same age as her, and an older brother, Lowell. She loved both fiercely but … Continue reading Man Booker Challenge 2014: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
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