It's been really interesting following the Booker Prize this year. It highlighted some books which were already recent favourites including “Small Things Like These”, “The Colony”, “The Trees”, “Nightcrawling” and “Glory”. But it also encouraged me to pick up other excellent novels such as “Booth”, “Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies” and this year's deserving winner “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”.

I had the great privilege of attending the celebration and announcement for the prize. Before the event began of I was able to see the authors looking at the one-of-a-kind special editions of their novels. I also had a little talk with Shehan Karunatilaka beforehand and I got to ask him a question at the press conference after the ceremony. You can watch a video of this and my vlog about the rest of the evening here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMeaGY-hefA

I had lovely chats with Maddie Mortimer, Percival Everett, Elif Shafak, a judge of next year’s Booker International Prize and some fellow bookstagrammers. Dua Lipa led us in singing happy to Alan Garner who was on a video call. I lost my glasses and found my glasses. It was all quite a whirlwind!

Since the protagonist of Karunatilaka’s novel is a gambler it felt appropriate to place a bet on “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” and it was my favourite to win. So it paid off, but moreover I'm thrilled with this result as the novel is such an entertaining and insightful story. It's a suspenseful mystery, a reckoning with Sri Lanka's war torn history, a creepy ghost story and a moving meditation on the meaning of life. I’m glad more people will be discovering it now.

Have you read Maali Almeida yet? What do you think of the result?