We’re a week out from the shortlist announcement, and I just finished my ninth from the Booker Dozen. In following this year’s theme of thin volumes and character studies, Wild Houses by Colin Barrett (Grove Press 2024) is a gritty look at small town Irish life – heavy on drugs, violence, and hopes to escapeContinue reading “WILD HOUSES – Colin Barrett”
Tag Archives: book review
WANDERING STARS – Tommy Orange
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I could have done it if you hadn’t come. We’ve just been the feather. We used to be the whole bird. We used to believe and we were the whole bird.” Next up on my Booker journey is Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars (Knopf 2024). Wandering Stars is a bookendContinue reading “WANDERING STARS – Tommy Orange”
THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY – Claire Messud
“This strange eventful history that made a life. Not good orbad – rather both good and bad – but that was not the point. Above all, theyhad been, for so long, wildly curious. Just to see, to experience all thatcould deny, to set foot anywhere, to speak to anyone, taste anything, to learn,to know.” IContinue reading “THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY – Claire Messud”
ORBITAL – Samantha Harvey
“Raw space is a panther, feral and primal; they dream it stalking through their quarters.” “There’s a lingering sense of an unfinished dream, something wild in his thoughts.” The Booker train is certainly off to a roaring start, and I think this may be the first year I complete the longlist before the winner isContinue reading “ORBITAL – Samantha Harvey”
HELD – Anne Michaels
“Stories told on a battlefield, on a life raft, in a hospital ward at night. In a café that will disappear before morning. Someone overhears. Someone listens, attentive with all his heart. No one listens. The story told to one who is slipping into sleep, or into unconsciousness, never to wake. The story told toContinue reading “HELD – Anne Michaels”
MY FRIENDS – Hisham Matar
“Friend. What a word. Most use it about those they hardly know. When it is a wondrous thing.” The 2024 Booker Prize longlist was announced on July 30th. Of the official “Booker Dozen,” I’d read only one: Percivall Everett’s James. (Feel free to look back for that review.) Prior to the announcement, I’d read anContinue reading “MY FRIENDS – Hisham Matar”
PRAISEWORTHY – Alexis Wright
“A magic donkey could rip your heart out and make you go wild, if it knew you had an overwhelming desire to own it, and knew that you would do anything to capture its power.” “She is the prisoner of the ghosts and trapped inside her house.” “… of course he knows that Aboriginal SovereigntyContinue reading “PRAISEWORTHY – Alexis Wright”
HAPPY MEDIUM – Sarah Adler
Gretchen Acorn, a fake spiritual medium (a hustler with a heart of gold), gets paid 10k by a wealthy client to “cleanse” a goat farm of a pesky (and pervy) ghost. The goat farm belongs to the client’s bridge partner, so Gretchen is expecting an older gentleman that she can hustle into thinking she’s solvedContinue reading “HAPPY MEDIUM – Sarah Adler”
ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK – Chris Whitaker
“I’d say follow your heart, but in that way madness lies.” It’s Stephen King meets Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides with the faintest dash of Fredrik Backman’s Beartown’s small town heart. It hums with hints of My Girl and Fried Green Tomatoes – perhaps it’s the bees or the friendship or both. In short,Continue reading “ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK – Chris Whitaker”
PEARL – Siân Hughes
CHOO! CHOO! The 2023 Booker Train journey is officially over! (With a little less than a week to spare!) Siân Hughes’s Pearl ( W. F. Howes Ltd 2023) is a slim little volume. I decided to read the audiobook as the print copies won’t be available until the end of the month, and I am gladContinue reading “PEARL – Siân Hughes”
A Girl Named Tommi 