I have now attempted to read all the books on this year’s Booker long list and am sad to report that I haven’t had much luck with them. I only found two books I really enjoyed; the rest were a mixture of average reads and ones that irritated me.
Predicting a short list is an almost impossible task so I decided to summarise my thoughts by ordering the long list a) according to my preference and b) in the order I think reflects their relative literary merit (writing quality, re-readability etc).
Bookers ordered to my preference:
(all links go to my thoughts on each book)
- A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards
- The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
- The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness
- Half Blood Blues by Esi Edgyan
- On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry
- The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
- Far to Go by Alison Pick
- Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch
- Derby Day by DJ Taylor
- The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
- Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
- Snowdrops by A.D. Miller
Bookers in order of literary merit:
- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
- On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry
- Snowdrops by A.D. Miller
- Half Blood Blues by Esi Edgyan
- Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch
- The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
- Derby Day by DJ Taylor
- The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness
- A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards
- The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
- Far to Go by Alison Pick
- The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
- Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
In each case the top six titles (in bold) would make it to their respective short lists. The exception being :
- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
- On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry
where I think the books are too similar for both to be put through to the short list together. I think The Sense of an Ending is the slightly stronger book and so I predict it will go through at the expense of On Canaan’s Side. I’m hoping that the books are selected on literary merit and so therefore predict that the Booker short list revealed on 6th September will be:
Which books do you think will make it onto the Booker short list?