The longlist for this year's Booker Prize has been announced and there are a lot of surprises here. Probably the novel readers will be least surprised to see is Hilary Mantel's giant final volume in her Cromwell trilogy. But this isn't the only novel on the list which completes a trilogy because we also have “This Mournable Body” by Tsitsi Dangarembga – which, if you can believe it, is part of a series of books even longer in the making than Mantel's novel. Dangarembga has been writing about her fictional character Tambu for more than thirty years. Recently the BBC named her novel “Nervous Conditions” one of the top 100 novels that shaped the world so it's really interesting to see her continuing influence now. Since I've only read four of the books on this list, I have to say, personally the novel I'm most happy to see here is Sophie Ward's novel “Love and Other Thought Experiments”. As I talked about in my video about the best books I've read this year so far, it is such a thought-provoking and original novel like nothing I've read before. So I'm overjoyed more people will be reading and discussing this book.
Overall, I'm very excited about this list as there are several books I've been really wanting to read and a few I've not heard of – there's always surprises on the Booker list and even moreso this year. I think most people will remark that there aren't many big well known authors on the list – except Hilary Mantel, Anne Tyler and Colum McCann. And the main reason for that is because eight out of these thirteen novels are debuts. There are also nine female writers and four male writers. I've made a video where I talk through all these novels. Four of them haven't been published in the UK yet, but they will all be out before the shortlist is announced on September 15th.
I must admit, I’m disappointed that Ali Smith’s “Summer”, Paul Mendez’s “Rainbow Milk”, Joyce Carol Oates’ “Night.Sleep. Death. The Stars” and Monique Roffey’s “The Mermaid of Black Conch” didn’t make this year’s list. I'd love to know in the comments what you think about the list as a whole and what you're most eager to read from it.
