Category: Book Prizes

Categories
Booker Prize

Headlong by Michael Frayn

Headlong by Michael Frayn was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1999.

Headlong is the story an art historian who spots a lost painting by Breugal in his neighbour’s house. He sets out to obtain the painting by any means possible, in order to bring himself fame and fortune. For the best paintings, visit Fibre Design website.

As I know next to nothing about art, I was worried that I would find this book difficult to read, but the technical terms are explained simply and the descriptions of the paintings are so wonderful that I almost felt I knew what they looked like.

The plot is fairly fast paced, and I love the many moral dilemmas concerning the value of love, friendship, trust and wealth. I got slightly bored by the sections on the history of Breugal, but the rest of the book made up for these, and I loved the ending.

As so much of the plots hinges on parts of Breugal’s paintings I feel that it would have been beneficial to have some pictures of the paintings in the book. I ended up looking for them on the internet, and as a result of seeing the pictures I felt I had a much better understanding of what was going on.

It’s a great book, with well researched content and realistic characters. I recommend it, as long as you can put up with the history!

Categories
Booker Prize

G by John Berger

‘G’ won the Booker prize in 1972. It is about the life of a privileged family, living in Italy, at the turn of the century.

The majority of the book was the fairly boring story of ‘G’. I felt very little empathy for his character, and got more disinterested in his life as the book went on.

Very early into the book a few graphic sex scenes are thrown in. I say thrown, as there seems to be no real reason for their presence. They do not add anything to the story line, and seem only to be there to shock the reader. I was not shocked, but this along with the childish drawing of penises make parts of this book feel as though they are written by a teenage boy.

There are a few more sex scenes later on in the book, which at least seem to be part of the story, but again brought the book down to a much lower level. It then deteriorated into inane ramblings by the author, about the quality of sexual experiences.

There were a few interesting historical pieces in the book, but it wasn’t worth having to read the rest of the book, just for these few, short paragraphs.

Overall, the book felt very disjointed. The characters were shallow, and I would only recommend this book to teenage boys in need of a bit of sexual education!

1 star out of 5.

Categories
Orange Prize

The Monsters of Templeton – Lauren Groff

The Monsters of Templeton was short listed for the Orange New Writers Prize in 2008. It tells the story of a young woman in New York State, as she finds out the secrets of her family tree, in order to discover the truth about her own life.

 

There were many things I loved about this book. The photos at the start of each chapter made the characters in the historical sections feel much more real, and the continual updating of the family tree throughout the book helped me to understand what was happening, as sometimes the large family became confusing. Unfortunately, some of the historical writing in the book did not seem true to it’s age, and so didn’t come across as very realistic. The letters weren’t as well written as the rest of the book, and I lost interest in a few of the characters further up the family tree.

 

The modern story in the book was excellent. The main character, Willie, was very well drawn. I loved her, despite her flaws, and really felt for her as she dealt with the problems she was faced with.

 

I loved the way the discovery of a monster in the lake was made to feel realistic. The scientific analysis of it at the end was particularly clever.

 

Overall, the way the story was well plotted, and the ending was very satisfying.

 

Recommended.

 

Categories
Orange Prize Other

The Orange Prize Project

I love prize winning fiction, so I’ve decided to sign up to another challenge! – The Orange Prize Project . I have read a few of the Orange prize winers already, but there are a lot more buried in my reading pile. Hopefully, by taking part in this challenge, I will be encouraged to move a few of them to the top of the pile!
The ones I have read so far are:

2008
The Outcast, by Sadie Jones

2006
The Accidental, by Ali Smith

2005
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka

2004
Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2001
The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood

1996
The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff, which was shortlisted for the prize this year, is top of my reading pile, so I should finish reading it soon.
I look forward reading lots more Orange prize winners over the coming months!

Categories
Pulitzer Prize Recommended books

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon

 

 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay first entered my reading pile as it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001, and I have challenged myself to read all the winners. It quickly got propelled to the top of my reading pile when it came up as a match for A Fine Balance (one of my favourite books) on Storycode (see post below)

 

The book started off really well, and by page 35 I was so fond of the characters that I had tears in my eyes when they had to say goodbye to each other. This is a very rare event for me, as I don’t often cry when reading. There are perhaps five books that have managed to move me to tears in my entire lifetime, so this just goes to show the power of the writing in this book.

 

It continued well, and I loved the detail of the magic tricks, and Joe’s escape from Prague in 1939 to his cousin’s flat in America. Then everything went wrong. There were about 200 pages of boring details about life in a comic book office. I completely lost interest in the book, and at one point I nearly gave up on it. I’m really glad that I didn’t though, as the last third of the book was as good as the beginning. The plot was clever, the vivid characters were back and the ending was very satisfying.   

 

An amazing book, with a long, dull bit in the middle. It could easily have had 9 or 10 stars if the boring bit had been condensed to about 10 pages.

 

Recommended, as long as you are able to get through a long slow section – it is worth it in the end!

 

Also reviewed by Sophisticated Dorkiness

Categories
1990s Booker Prize

Amsterdam – Ian McEwan

‘Amsterdam’ by Ian McEwan won the Booker prize in 1998. It begins at Molly’s funeral, which is attended by her husband George, and three of her previous lovers: Vernon, Clive, and Julian. In the days after her funeral Clive and Vernon make a pact that binds them together forever.

I read it in one sitting, but this was more due to the fact it was such a short book, rather than because it was any good. It was fairly well written, but the characters failed to engage me. I found many sections quite dull, and started to wish the book would end, so I wouldn’t have to endure them any more. I’m sure there was a lot of humour and irony in there, but it’s not that not the sort of thing that I find amusing.

The ending was a big disappointment. I could see it coming a mile off – even the cover illustration seems to give it away! The whole plot just seemed a bit child-like in it’s simplicity.

Overall, I was yet again disappointed by a Booker winner. Do I really want to read them all?!!