Actually a better year than usual, which it should be considering the addiction I've had to contemporary fiction recently, but we can all rest easy now, all that wondering and hoping done with and mine tinged with pangs of sadness that Burnt Shadows didn't make the cut.
A quick stock inventory reveals I've read six, have another four books sitting staring at me, so only three to source and I've done that now so the Bookerthon 2009 is up and running. I discovered William Trevor back in 1996 with Reading Turgenev and My House in Umbria; Love and Summer hasn't been here long enough for me to even open it but I am looking forward to it immensely.
Ah now then The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds.
I should have listened more keenly because it has been whispering Booker to me since forever this year, and John Self over at Asylum flagged this up as one to watch very early on in the year.
Yet each time I picked it up I failed, however it has the essence of that species of books I'm enjoying reading at the moment (trees on the cover) so I'll be trying harder.
How interesting too that Not Untrue, Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin hit my radar and my Now Reading list a few weeks ago when I noticed it had puffs on the cover from two previous Booker names, Anne Enright and Joseph O'Neill. I started well and then wilted, book unfinished into the beginnings of the LitFest season and things stayed that way. I'll have another merit-seeking attempt.
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey also sprouts a tree on the cover except it's pink, but this book has garnered so much praise it's half killing me to have failed so miserably with it backalong when it was Orange reading, so must try harder there too. I just kept losing a grip on what was happening which all unnerved me completely, but as plenty are saying, perhaps that's the point of a book on Alzheimer's.
The others are new to me and secretly that's what I was hoping for (honestly I'd only have been pleased for about a minute if I'd picked all thirteen) and can I secretly say that I'm really looking forward to Me Cheeta by James Lever, great reviews everywhere and I'll bet we have judge and Cornish-based comedian Sue Perkins to thank for that inclusion.
No predictions about short list yet but I have a feeling four if not five of the books have already nabbed their seats, so it could all get ugly again between me and myself.
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