21st Century Literature discussion

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2014 will be chaired by AC Grayling. The judges are: Jonathan Bate, Sarah Churchwell, Dr Alastair Niven, Dr Daniel Glaser and Erica Wagner.

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/man-...

The Key Dates for the 2014 Prize:

- The longlist will be announced on Wednesday 23 July 2014
- The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 9 September 2014
- The winner will be announced on Tuesday 14th October 2014.

Chair:
A.C. Grayling

Judges:
Jonathan Bate
Jonathan Bates (same or different?)

Sarah Churchwell

Alastair Niven

Daniel Glaser

Erica Wagner

For some reason I don't trust the Man Booker. I think there were a few instances when I read listed books (or even winners?) which I thought was utter shh... and got totally disappointed with this prize as a recommendation. But maybe it was just that one time.. The judges aren't the same probably too. Maybe I should still check out the shortlist when it comes out..

Have you read any good books from their previous lists? Trying to get the Man Booker absolved here :)

I really only watched the Booker just this past year, and I was VERY impressed by the shortlist.
The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín was one of my favorite books of 2013; the tiny 96 page book was shortlisted against some other excellent but much longer works:

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
The Luminariesby Eleanor Catton
Harvest by Jim Crace
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

My Toibin review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

My Ozeki review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Evelina wrote: "Have you read any good books from their previous lists? Trying to get the Man Booker absolved here :) ..."

Evelina -- Man Booker is the ONE prize each year that I began following when introduced to me by a founder of my f2f book club. Over the years it has led us to selections that have been absolutely top of the top and to others that we have not cared for at all. Still, it is one of the reasons that I now follow other prizes. I'm not always sure prizes tell as much about the reading world as they do about the publishing and literary academic worlds. But, they can still be useful to many of us to lay alongside our personal considerations.

I started to go through the list and pick out favorites, but discovered that even among those books I either hadn't read or didn't like were authors that I have liked. Man Booker choices probably are particularly valuable in creating awareness of authors whose oeuvres should be considered.

Among those I include: Hilary Mantel, Iris Murdoch (seldom easy), Penelope Fitzgerald, Salman Rushdie, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Kazuo Ishiguro, A.S. Byatt, Ian McEwan, Michael Ondaatje,...

Several others I have either appreciated--if not necessarily enjoyed or are still on my would be nice to get to one day. In general, these are not authors who have produced easy reads. Rushdie's Midnight's Children will probably become one of the classics of the independence of India. It took me two reads to appreciate the book. There are others of his books that I have abandoned. I wish Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup were widely used among senior high school students because it seems to me such an excellent, short study of trade-offs in values and restrictions across cultures. J.M. Coetzee tackles some of the most intractable moral issues and can be enigmatic, but cuts so close to the human soul, too. I just enjoyed Penelope Fitzgerald's quirky Offshore , but reaction to others of hers has been uneven. But, enough here. You get a sense of the situation. I will say I found recent winner The Gathering by Anne Enright to be bleak, but the writing fine enough that I am willing to try her again.

Evelina, you will probably find amusing the controversies associated with the Man Booker that are described on its Wiki entry. They may well reinforce your trepidations about the prize!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Book...

Hm. All of this sounds good. Maybe I don't remember the prize name correctly..? Maybe it was something else.. the worst thing is that I forgot the book in question.. I just know I really hated it, but now I can't even check.

If Ozeki's Time being is on it, you don't have to tell me anything more, cause that was one of the best books that I've read this year..

Now I'm even more puzzled.

Evelina wrote: "Maybe it was something else.. the worst thing is that I forgot the book in question.. I just know I really hated it, but now I can't even check...."

The Wiki list (msg @4) shows the winners succinctly. Not terribly comfortable to read, but the short lists through the years are included on the PDF here:

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/time...

I think it is quite possible to "really hate" a Man Booker selection -- even a "good" one! [g]

I agree with Lily in general. I feel that the winner each year of the main prize is almost always a political choice, not based on the current book but on books earlier in the career, so it is like a make up prize, sorry we missed you earlier prize, but the author who wins is always worth research. In the long list are some of the best books I've ever read, many not selected because the author was not famous yet. They are trying to choose the best British novel, and the long list has some great ones!

With the international prize, they have selected three of my favorites in the last three years, so it's nice to see that they're good in that category! ;-;

I think it's like that with most literary contests - isn't it? I mean, it's mostly the same crowd every year, more or less (lol). And it's always like this with most contests in general (not just liteature) that the runner-ups are more worthy of attention than the main prize. Well, at least sometimes.

For me, the Booker prize is also the one prize I trust the most. Of course, I hsven't read all of the winners/shortlisted books, but I haven't been disappointed by any of those I have read. And some of my favourite authors have been shortlisted (maybe not that many winners), like Ali Smith, David Mitchell and Magnus Mills.
So, every year I look forward to the shirtlist to fill my ever growing tbr pile.

By the time I return to this in the morning, some one of you might well have posted the Long List announcement. In the meantime, a link to speculations in The Guardian:

The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/books/book...

Just for fun: Do literary prizes make books less popular?
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014...

Rival awards:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/book...

Looking forward to see what comes up this year. I also find myself really trusting the Man Booker shortlists and often read them (but definitely not always).

For me, they usually really deliver on its promise to be an excellent read. I probably can only think of two exceptions i really didn't like that much: Anne Enright's The Gathering and Arundhati Roy;s The God of Small Things (the latter one i never actually finished, but i still intend to - one day).

But books like The Sense of an Ending are just beyond fabulous.

An announcement:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/boo...

And the nominees are:

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, Joshua Ferris (Viking)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan (Chatto & Windus) Winner
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Serpent's Tail)
The Blazing World, Siri Hustvedt (Sceptre)
J, Howard Jacobson (Jonathan Cape)
The Wake, Paul Kingsnorth (Unbound)
The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell (Sceptre)
The Lives of Others, Neel Mukherjee (Chatto & Windus)
Us, David Nicholls (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Dog, Joseph O'Neill (Fourth Estate)
Orfeo, Richard Powers (Atlantic Books)
How To Be Both, Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
History of the Rain, Niall Williams (Bloomsbury)

The first Man Booker prize to admit novels from across the globe as long as they are written in English has published its longlist. Following much discussion, the six judges chaired by philosopher Anthony Grayling chose 13 books by four Americans, six Britons, two Irish writers and one Australian.

One former Man Booker winner. Howard Jacobson, is on the longlist along with two previously shortlisted authors, Ali Smith and David Mitchell. Also on the list are David Nicholls, whose previous novel, One Day , was filmed with Anne Hathaway, and the Anglo-Indian writer Neel Mukherjee.

The American writers longlisted include Richard Powers, Siri Hustvedt, Joshua Ferris and Karen Joy Fowler.

- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news...

I did not find entries for J or Us.

Us can be found here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Postscript: Here is a link for J:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

7/27 -- with the help of the Librarian's board, I have been trained to search for short-named books by concatenating the author's name. It worked for "J" and "Us" above, so those have been updated in the list itself. I left the links below for reference.

I loved The Sisters Brothers. One of my favorite books this century.

Excited about The Bone Clocks.

It's always around this time of year that I get annoyed all over again at the lag/price difference between hardbacks (which I never buy) and paperbacks...

Thanks for posting Lily!
I've been so focused on readings books i already have rather than getting new ones the past 2 years so i haven't read many on the list.

I'm a bit surprised about 'We're all completely beside ourselves'. I absolutely loved it, but it seems a very atypical Man Booker choice.
Definitely a positive surprise though.

It is wonderful that we have read Karen Fowler's novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. It was a very thought-provoking list.

Thanks for posting the list Lily. I've only read Karen Fowler's book, but Joshua Ferris is a young author I really like and I have his book, so I'm glad to see him on the list. Of course, David Mitchell is always a good, if sometimes challenging, read. Most of the books sound interesting. Since I have a few credits built up on Goodreads Audible, I believe some of them will make there way to my iPod!

I agree with the idea of using the winning titles to identify authors worth pursuing, as they are almost always strong writers. BTW, I also thought "The Sisters Brothers" was a totally cool book.

Linda wrote: "Since I have a few credits built up on Goodreads, I believe some of them will make there way to my iPod! "

Linda, what are these GR credits you mentioned? I've never heard of them.

Angie wrote: "Linda wrote: "Since I have a few credits built up on Goodreads, I believe some of them will make there way to my iPod! "

Linda, what are these GR credits you mentioned? I've never heard of them."

My fault. My credits are on Audible.com. I must have had a brain freeze when I typed Goodreads. I've edited the post. Apologies.

Linda wrote: "My fault. My credits are on Audible.com. I must have had a brain freeze when I typed Goodreads. I've edited the post. Apologies."

I thought it might be that. I use Audible as well. I hope you enjoy your credits.

Come back tomorrow (9/9) for the 2014 Man Booker Short List. In the meantime, The Guardian speculates:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/book...

(If recent award history/controversy interests you, follow some of the links about the 2011 prize.)

Shortlist is revealed:
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news...

- Joshua Ferris - To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
- Richard Flanagan - The Narrow Road to the Deep North
- Karen Joy Fowler - We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
- Howard Jacobson - J
- Neel Mukherjee - The Lives of Others
- Ali Smith - How to be both


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As I haven't read any of these, I can't really comment on them, but all in all that looks like a very politically correct list. 2x British, 2x American, 1x Australian, 1x British-Indian - 2/3 longlisted women now in the shortlist. Smith's new novel looks extremely promising from its premise alone, I'd love to read it.

I have to admit I'm shocked that The Bone Clocks didn't make it. I read all of the longlist that was available in the US (except The Wake which I just couldn't do) and The Bone Clocks and The Blazing World were my personal favorites followed by Orfeo and The Narrow Road To The Deep North.

Thanks for the list, Sam.

I'd love to know the politics behind some of these. Thx for pointing out the "balance" aspect of the author selections.

There's always a controversy every year about the Bookers. But I still want to read them.

Glad to hear good things about The Narrow Road. Will be picking it up this afternoon at my library.

Apparently, the Booker Prize will be awarded tomorrow. Alan Cheuse reviewed J by Howard Jacobson on NPR's All Things Considered this afternoon: http://www.npr.org/2014/10/13/3559040...

Kirsten wrote: "Apparently, the Booker Prize will be awarded tomorrow. Alan Cheuse reviewed J by Howard Jacobson on NPR's All Things Considered this afternoon: http://www.npr.org/2014/10/13/3559040......"

Some other news articles pre-announcement:

Bookies report: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/in...

From down under: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014...

Speaking for the Commonwealth: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisf...

Watch the announcement? http://www.themanbookerprize.com/feat...

21:30 BST (4:30 pm EDT)

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock...

I just love the Brits! They will bet on ANYTHING!

@29Lily wrote: "Some other news articles pre-announcement:..."

A few more this morning:

A poll: http://www.theguardian.com/books/book...

Fowler's story has sold well: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...

Group picture/long flight reading: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datab...

And the winner is:

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan (Chatto & Windus) Winner

Richard Flanagan is making his acceptance speech at the moment, but he was not intelligible for the site link.

(Did get to see the Duchess of Cornwall making the award, with Chair A.C. Grayling present

I read all of the six shortlisted novels this year. Just wanted to boast.
No, actually I wanted to say I thought the wrong book won. My list would have read;
1st We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler
2nd J, Howard Jacobson
3rd How to be Both, Ali Smith
4th To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, Joshua Ferris
5th The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan
6th The Lives of Others, Neel Mukherjee

Wow! All 6? My library doesn't even HAVE all 6. I haven't read any yet. But I do have THE NARROW ROAD checked out.

I have read three of them and would agree with Joe: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves should have won. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour on the other hand was abysmally bad, could not get through it. How to be Both was amazing, both stylistically and content-wise. Smith should have won if they had taken a highbrow-approach, Fowler because of its general merit and appeal.
My girlfriend got me a copy of The Narrow Road to the Deep North a few days ago, so I'll dive into that in the near future.

My 2 favorites from the longlist didn't even make the shortlist. The Bone Clocks was by far my favorite followed by The Blazing World. I liked The Narrow Road to the Deep North a lot but I would have been fine with We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves or J winning. The other three I thought we OK but not award winning.

I agree that the Bone Clocks should have at least made the short list.

To be honest I found the Narrow Raod a bit cliched. The romance didn't ring true, the brutality of the PoW camp underplayed if anything, and the evil Japanese cartoonish.

I would have placed J at the top of the highbrow end, but Beside Ourselves was just much more fun.

It is fun to realize how deeply so many of us differ in reactions and with what range. A book read is certainly often very much what we bring to it as well as what the words on the pages say.

Lily wrote: "It is fun to realize how deeply so many of us differ in reactions and with what range. A book read is certainly often very much what we bring to it as well as what the words on the pages say."

You are right.
I find it a very different experience to music, which is another media in which what we bring as customers shape our enjoyment of the piece. I find it very difficult to listen to new genres of music, and find my taste has been very much shaped by my teenage enthusiasms, so much so that I have a visceral reaction to what I think is good and bad.
With reading though I find I am much more open to new writers, styles and genres.

It is always amusing to read others' thoughts of books I've loved or hated. Sometimes I find it incredulous we are actually reading the same book!

That's so true Kirsten. I've had that thought many times!

What also amazes me is the many times that I find points of agreement with both those who love a book and those who hated it! Turn the coin over.

the problem with the booker is it focusses on, by its judging process what rereads well. this goes against comedy, it goes against surprises and it focusses on something very different than most readers want in a book. I think this would go against the fowler ( the only one of the shortlist I read).

Ben, I'd be interested in a bit more explanation concerning what you think most readers want in a book and why that doesn't align with the criteria the Booker judges use.

Interview on BBC Radio 3 with Man Booker nominated author Neel Mukherjee:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p027qkdr

Kirsten wrote: "Interview on BBC Radio 3 with Man Booker nominated author Neel Mukherjee:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p027qkdr"

Thank you! I look forward to listening to this!