The Dutch House | Ann Patchett #20BooksofWinter

The rave reviews are the hardest, aren't they?

It took me a few chapters to fall into this story, but when I fell, I really fell! The Dutch House turned out to be one of those wonderful, rich reading experiences that you wish would never end. Part gothic fairy tale and part psychological study of two siblings trying to come to terms with their loss and grief as they did battle with a wicked stepmother. Eventually expelled from their childhood home, they spent their adult lives searching for forgiveness, atonement and a way back home.

The character driven storytelling was absorbing, poignant and immersive. Maeve and her brother, Danny were characters that felt real - flawed but lovable. Their shared obsession with the childhood home helped them to gloss over their other losses. Money and possessions didn't matter; they simply worked hard and made good on their own. No parent? No worries; they had each other. 

But this is Ann Patchett we're talking about here, so there are many more layers to the story than that. Mothers and mothering played a big role as did materialism, greed and poverty. The different ways that kindness and love can be expressed and then experienced were explored. Do we ever really know our loved ones or do we waste a lot of time and energy trying to make them fit into the world view that we already have?

And we cannot talk about The Dutch House without talking about the house itself. As a metaphor for childhood and mother we see Maeve and Danny's mother reject and leave both the house and the children. As a place of shelter and protection, it clearly moved away from being a place of safety and security after the mother left and the stepmother wheedled her way in. 

As a symbol for self and personality, it's easy to see the Dutch House as an ongoing search by Maeve and Danny for a way back in, for integration. Their sense of being outsiders, abandoned and alone affected all their relationships. The weight of the grudge they carried around almost became another character, like the house. Spending so much time in the car together, looking at the house from outside, facilitated a kind of therapy session for both of them. Although I was in a constant panic that the stepmother would discover them and that things would turn ugly, but that could just be my fear of conflict!

It's curious that a book that seems designed to discuss mothers and mothering is narrated by Danny. In fact, for the first few chapters, I assumed that Danny was a sister, not a brother. He acknowledged that 'after our mother left, Maeve took up the job on my behalf but no one did the same for her'. Maeve considered herself lucky simply because she'd had many more years with their mother than he did. At every point Danny benefited from all the women in his life who took care and made sacrifices for him, but when their mother finally turned up again and Maeve forgave her and immediately moved to recreate a relationship with her, Danny was pissed off that he's been displaced. I accepted that he didn't want to forgive or let his mother back into his life, but I did resent that he wanted to deny Maeve the chance to decide for herself, when it was so obvious that Maeve was dying to feel mothered again.

But maybe that was one of Patchett's points. It's okay for fathers and men to be distant and absent, we can admire them for their ambition and worldly ways, but when a mother does it, she is lambasted and denied forgiveness or understanding.

Maeve and Danny were not the only siblings in this story. We also had Jocelyn and Sandy, the women who helped run Dutch House before and after the mother left, until they were also expelled along with Maeve and Danny. The wicked stepmother arrived with two children of her own, Bright and Norma. None of these characters were fully fleshed out for the reader as we only ever got to really see them through Danny's eyes. He didn't even realise that Jocelyn and Sandy were sisters until he was about 11 yrs old. He simply accepted them, unquestioningly, as part of the fabric of his young life, as most children do. 

I'm glad that Patchett never gave as any insight into why the stepmother was the way she was. She obviously had her own demons to behave the way she did throughout the story, but those demons remain part of the mystery. All we know is that her parenting style also completely alienated Norma and Bright. Bright didn't even return when her mother was ill and dying.

Patchett was inspired by something Zadie Smith said about writing autobiographical fiction, 

She was saying that autobiographical fiction didn’t have to be about what happened — it could be about what you were afraid might happen. She said the character of the mother in Swing Time was autobiographical because that was the mother she didn’t want to be. I thought that was brilliant. It explained something I’d always been doing but had never put into words. I adore Zadie Smith. At that moment, sitting on a stage with her at Belmont University, I thought, I want to write a book about the kind of stepmother I don’t want to be.

Our book group had a great discussion about all the elements in the story and it was one of the few books where everyone agreed on how much we loved it. A number of them had even read the book twice, saying they got so much more out of the story second time round as they were able to tease out some of the nuances even more.

The Dutch House is a keeper. 

I think this is my first 5 star rating for the year.

Favourite Quotes:

But we overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.

There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you'd been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you're suspended knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.

We had made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it.

Norma said that childhood wasn’t something she could imagine inflicting on another person, especially not a person she loved.

Facts:

• Finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
• Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2020

Cover Love

• I agree with Ann, this is one of the best covers for a book ever. 
• You can listen to how this came about in this short video.
• It's not often that an author gets to have so much control over what ends up on the cover.
• It's not often that the same cover gets used for the US, UK and Australian editions of a book either.

Book 3 of 20 Books of Summer Winter - I'm a little behind schedule this year!

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line | Deepa Anappara #WomensPrize

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line attracted my attention initially thanks to the cover. That big eye seemed to follow me around everywhere I went and after a season of blue/green covers, the bright yellow stood out a mile on the bookshop bookshelf. However I made an early assumption that it was nasty crime fiction, and therefore, not for me...until it was longlisted for the Women's Prize and I looked a little closer. There was a mysterious crime - disappearing child in the Indian slums - but it also had a child narrator to take the sting out of the nastiness. And this is why, in the end, love them or hate them, I appreciate literary awards - they make me pick up a book I may have otherwise ignored or pre-judged as not of interest to me. 

Discovering hidden gems is the best thing about a literary longlist. 

I tend to have fairly firm opinions about which books should make certain lists or not, so I will either be delighted or devastated when the lists are announced. Recently, I was so disappointed that The Yield did not win this year's Stella Prize, that I'm not sure I will be able to make myself read the chosen winner - ever. Even when The Yield finally got the nod for the 2020 NSW Premier's Award plus the People's Choice Award, the sting from the Stella still stayed with me. 

But then, a few years ago, one of the Stella shortlisted book was The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by little known Iranian/Australian author, Shokoofeh Azar. I may never have come across this stunning story, if not for the Stella, except that now it has also been shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize. It deserves all the attention it gets and if award nominations are what it takes to get it out there, then so be it. 

It doesn't have to win, but the nomination brings it to our attention. 

It may not be a high-minded, literary, five-star read, (although in both these cases they were five stars for me) but an amazing four-star reading experience is not to be sneezed at. Considering I only rate a handful of books five stars every year, four is still a damned good book! 

I really only star rate books to satisfy the goodreads criteria for reviewing. I find it a completely flawed system. The number of times I want to/need to adjust my star rating months later is ridiculous. A few times I realise a book is staying with me for far longer than I had anticipated. It keeps talking to me, whispering in my ear to reread it one day. Those books will get bumped up to five stars. But more often than not, my initial four star love wanes into a warm memory that drops down to a comfortable, middle-of-the-road three stars.

Both The Yield and Greengage got bumped up to five stars. Djinn Patrol is currently sitting very happily in the four zone. I may not be feeling the itch to reread it, but I am very keen to read anything else that Deepa Anappara might write in the future. She brought the sounds, smells and tastes of India to life. Living in a basti might seem unbearably grim and difficult to outsiders, but from our young narrators point of view, this is the only world he knows. This is where his family lives and works. Jai is cared for by neighbours and goes to school nearby. There are all sorts of underlying caste/class issues that play out on the streets and in the classroom, but that's all Jai knows. He accepts his life and his lot, yet hopes that one day, rather then becoming one of the kids picking through the rubbish heaps, they might be able to afford to live in the rich apartments overlooking their slum.

That is, until some of the local kids start to go missing, one at a time.

Jai and his two friends decide to solve the mystery. They start to question the world they live in and wonder why these awful things have to happen.

The anger at corrupt police, racial stereotyping and the constant fear of violence and poverty are seen through a child's eyes. Jai's humour and innocence softens the blows for the reader, until it comes too close to home for anyone's comfort. 

Anappara has written an engaging, tense and vivid story that will stay with me for a long time. Please don't dismiss this book. It's a beauty and well worth your time. 

Facts:

• Debut writer
• Longlisted for Women's Prize for Fiction 2020
• Winner of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2018

Favourite or Forget:

• Unforgettable.

Actress | Anne Enright #Begorrathon

I have to ask straight up - who is Norah's father? Could you work it out? I wasn't sure. There didn't seem to be any repercussions or exposition after the reveal. Was it all about the #metoo element? But since you kind of figure that out for yourself very early on, it wasn't so much a shock revelation, but a quieter 'I thought so' moment. I'm confused.

Anyway, let's put that all that aside for now and talk about the lovely, lovely writing in Anne Enright's Actress. I loved her descriptions of Norah and her mother, the famous Katherine Odell, her observations of daily life and her empathy for the thinking of a 21 yr old.

• We had the same way of blinking, slow and fond, as though thinking of something beautiful.
• I think I mentioned that my mother was a star. Not just on screen or on the stage, but at the breakfast table also, my mother Katherine O’Dell was a star.
• The boiling eggs chittering against each other and along the metal bottom of the pan.
• My life felt like an imitation, and I was terrified it might become the real thing.

Actress was an fascinating story but there were many times when it felt rather like trying to drive a car and forgetting to put it into gear. The engine was revving sweetly, but we were going nowhere! Which is maybe why I felt the father revelation late in the story was more of a frustration than anything else. I was waiting patiently for a burst of speed that never happened.

I enjoyed my time in Enright's hands, but it's not the best example of her work.

#Begorrathon2020 #ReadingIrelandMonth2020

Epigraph:

• 'the more I applauded, the better, it seemed to me, did Berma act.' In Search of Lost Time

Enright Reviews:

• The Green Road -  my favourite Enright to date. 
• The Gathering

Girl, Woman, Other | Bernardine Evaristo #BookerWinner

I'm still trying to catch up on posts leftover from my magnificent Christmas reading binge.

Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel by Bernardine Evaristo is the final one. It is certainly not the least though. In fact, it very nearly overtook The Yield as my favourite book for 2019.

What stopped it from doing so?

Mostly time.

I have lived with and loved The Yield for many months now. It's wonderfulness has been a part of me for a much longer period of time than Girl, Woman, Other. It also has the advantage of being home grown. Poppy's very special Indigenous language dictionary is another stand out feature that I think about often.

But this is about Girl, Woman, Other and it definitely deserves it's own time in the sun to shine.

The twelve interconnected stories about growing up, living, working and loving in London by mostly black British women of various ages, had me hooked from the very first voice, Amma. Via these women, Evaristo talks about feminism, double standards, gender, racism, sexism and ageism.

The twelve chapters read like twelve separate portraits, with Evaristo revelling in the characterisations of each and every one. Her loose-flowing poetic prose was full of vitality and complexities. I was engrossed by each and every story, not wanting them to end, but then getting caught up in the next biography and wondering how they might interconnect.

The diversity and otherness suggested by the title, was explored on many levels. Part of my enjoyment came from reading such a fresh perspective and experiencing a reality different to my own. Note to self, read more diversely in 2020 (most of my 2019 reading was Australian and Indigenous).


Evaristo, herself, said:

I wanted to put presence into absence. I was very frustrated that black British women weren’t visible in literature. I whittled it down to 12 characters – I wanted them to span from a teenager to someone in their 90s, and see their trajectory from birth, though not linear. There are many ways in which otherness can be interpreted in the novel – the women are othered in so many ways and sometimes by each other. I wanted it to be identified as a novel about women as well.

Finally, I will tackle the co-winning of the Booker Prize with Margaret Atwood's The Testaments. I have read both and enjoyed both, but Girl, Woman, Other is by far the richer, more interesting and certainly the more original of the two. Labelling a book 'the best novel of the year', obviously leaves things very open to individual interpretation, but to my mind, Girl, Woman, Other stands head and shoulders above any of the others shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize and deserved to win in it's own right.

Facts:

• Joint Winner of the Booker Prize 2019
• Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2019
• Named one of Barack Obama’s Favourite Books of 2019

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson #USfiction

I'm struggling, at the moment, to find the right words to describe my reading experiences, yet at the same time, I'm going through an amazing reading phase, with three back to back stunners. Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout, Girl, Woman Other by Bernardine Evaristo and now Red at the Bone.

My journey with Red at the Bone began about three months ago when our rep gave me an ARC and said 'watch this one, it could take off.'

I then spotted it on several of the lists that Kate @Books Are My Favourite and Best listed on her list of lists for 2019.

When I finished Olive, Again the weekend before Christmas, I wanted something completely different, new and slim. Red at the Bone jumped out of my TBR pile for all those reasons...and I'm so glad it did.

But how to review such a splendid reading experience?

Normally I avoid Goodread reviews and other blogs until after I've finished reading and reviewing the book myself, but when I'm struggling to write, I will turn to outside sources to find inspiration, or in this case to find a spark to fire me up.

Most of the reviews reflected my time with the book. They loved the writing style, they loved the family and their strength and resilience.

However, one reviewer caught my eye. She talked about the misery heaped upon misery that made it impossible for her to read or enjoy this book. I was left wondering if we had even read the same book! As the day wore on, I could feel a response forming, a rebuttal building up that had to be proclaimed.

I didn't know whether to feel sad or envious that someone could see the events depicted in this novel as misery upon misery. Had this reviewer had such a fortunate life that they and their extended family had never experienced any of the things within this story? Or was there something else at play that I wasn't aware of?

In the lifetime of the three generations in this particular family, we had some racial and gender discrimination events, a teenage pregnancy, a move, illness, some LGBTQ issues and eventually a death or two. We also had love and hope and resilience. We had a family living in the times they were born into as gracefully as they could. Different personalities coped in different ways. The times they lived in impacted on the choices they could make.

This was a family that valued hard work and education...and family. Because ultimately, during those times in all our lives when things go pear-shaped, it's the love and support of family that gets you through. I couldn't see any of these events as misery heaped upon misery. I just saw well-lived lives full of the joy and drama of human existence. Things most of go through at different times.

I understand that a structure that jumps between time lines and points of view is not for everyone. If it's just a device to hang a story on, then I get frustrated too, but Woodson used the different time lines and points of view to circle around one big event, that changed everything for those left behind. The poetic writing style may not suit everyone either, but I love elegant distillers of beautiful language, so I happily went along for the ride.

I didn't know anything about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, but I do now. It wasn't necessary to have a full understanding of this event, to appreciate the choices the family made, as the story was about the consequences of those choices rather than an expose of the event itself. It was simply part of the family back story, much like the Depression and WWII informed my grandparents and parents views of the world. A powerful memory for those who lived it, but fading to insignificance for the generations that follow, who have their own demons or life-changing events to negotiate. Woodson was adept at exposing this generational divide.

As an outside observer, I'm acutely conscious of the race issues that plague America. They play out on our screens, in the books we read and on the news. In Australia, we have enough of our own issues to go on with, yet somehow, the American experience seeps into ours as well. Such complex topics are not easy to solve or discuss and they attract a wide variety of opinions, including the 'let's draw a line in the sand and call it done' approach. Simplistic solutions like this will never work all the while there are people alive who remember. Because memory becomes story, which then gets passed down from one generation to the next. All the while there is memory and story, that line in the sand will constantly shift.

However, we can choose which memories we turn into stories. And we can choose how to tell those stories. We can choose what lessons we want to learn and which ones we want to pass down to future generations. Woodson has chosen trauma triumphed by love.

I for one, will be looking out for more work by Woodson. Her voice and style appealed to me and I want to know more.

Ordinary People by Diana Evans

Ordinary People by Diana Evans found its way onto my TBR pile thanks to its shortlisting in this year's Women's Prize.

Evan's is quite magnificent in describing the daily grind of marital malaise for thirty-something's. We see two couples who have settled down with the one they happened to be sleeping with in their late twenties. They had lots of giddy love feels, hot sex and lots of fun and decided to have babies and/or get married.

However to those of us (the readers), looking in from the outside, we're not so sure this will work out. We're not so sure that the great sex and all that love/lust will translate into actual likes and a lifetime of compromise and working stuff out together. We're not so sure they share enough in common including parenting styles and interests. Like most young people, they actually haven't thought about what it might be like to really get old together.

The angst is real. They're pulled in different directions by different desires and beliefs. So many of these beliefs and desires come from external sources - movies, social media, advertising - that tells them they should be living a certain type of life, and loving it all the time. They love their kids, but it doesn't feel like enough.

Part of being in one's thirties is about coming to terms with the disconnect between the imagined or the social media show and the real world we actually live in. The compromises we all have to make, the ordinariness of real life, the drudgery that defines so much of adulthood with kids. Until we have that ah-ha moment.

For some of us it's a sudden, decisive change that often catches us by surprise; and for some its a more gradual, dawning realisation. However it comes to you, it's the sign that you've matured into the next phase of adulthood. And it's such a relief when you get there.

This is a story about four people on the edge of that moment.

I can see why this story was shortlisted for the Women's Prize but I can also see why it didn't win. The beginning was tremendous, extraordinary even. Evans explored the emotional lives of her four protagonists in a believable, sympathetic manner. But the ending veered off into a weird group holiday to Spain, with some gothic ghost story elements thrown in for good measure. I thought this was going to lead to a post-natal depression discussion, but it just fizzled out into nothing in the end. There was also a rather long bow drawn between the nearby decaying Crystal Palace and human relationships. And all that Michael Jackson reverence at the end was just weird given the turn his real life story took in recent times. Perhaps she was trying to say that even black heroes can fail the human decency test?

The bonus play script at the end, was a fun look at urban myths, what is real and what is fake. But by this point I was quite confused about Evans' message or purpose and felt that she had tried to include too many things all at once.

The very London setting with all its multi-layered socio-economic and political undercurrents was superbly realised. I loved the naturalness & ordinariness of reading about black middle class families.   I see by reading a few other reviews, that not everyone was as disappointed with the end as I was, so don’t take my word for it; read it yourself and make up your own mind.

Favourite Character: All the adults were pretty annoying by the end and I just wanted to shake them (in that same way that I'm sure my parents wanted to shake me at the same age)! Young Ria, however, was delightful with her curiosity, innocence and independence.

Favourite Quote: favourite by default - it was the only sentence I underlined in the whole book,

Sometimes in the lives of ordinary people, there is a great halt, a revelation, a moment of change. It occurs under low mental skies, never when one is happy.

Favourite or Forget: I enjoyed this enough to pass on to Mr Books to have a go at too.

Facts:

• Spotify playlist created by Evans available to listen to as you read. Highly recommended.
• One of the New Yorker best books of the year 2018.
• Shortlisted for the Women's Prize, Rathbones Folio Prize and Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

Book 21 of 20 Books of Summer Winter

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

I've had a lovely run of Homeric stories retold from a feminist perspective this year - Madeline Miller's Circe and The Song of Achilles, and now Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls.

After Miller's wonderful, rich storytelling, I was looking forward to seeing what Barker would come up. I was thrilled that her story was going to be told from Briseis' point of view, as I enjoyed the brief glimpse that Miller gave me into a possible story for her in The Song of Achilles.

Briseis, the wife of the King of Lyrnessus, Mynes is one of the women and girls captured as spoils of the Trojan war. She is given to Achilles as a war trophy, but becomes a disputed object between Achilles and Agememnon which leads the reader into the central crisis in Homer's The Iliad.

Barker doesn't shy away from the sexual nature of these transactions. The women and girls knew they were going to be enslaved, raped and abused. Knowing this, I'm not sure why more of them didn't leap from the top of the tower, like Barker described two young women doing early on, as the Greeks crashed through the front gate.

Maybe there wasn't that much difference between their husbands and their new masters? Or perhaps the violence wasn't as horrific as I imagined and Barker suggested? Maybe a form of love or tenderness bloomed between master and subject? Perhaps the Greeks were looking for the comforts of home not more violence?

We will never really know, which is why I'm so fascinated by these modern retellings.

However, in the end, Barker's was a fairly straight version of events as originally told in The Iliad.

I enjoyed the first person narrative of Briseis, but found the occasional third person narrative from Achilles point of view very clunky. There only worth was to highlight just how objectified the women in the camp were to the men. They were sexual objects for barter and to show off. Barker showed these men as being unable to remember the names of the women that they took to their beds on a regular basis, dismissing their words, their presence and their humanity.

I also struggled with the language. Barker's writing style abounded in cliches with her characters often behaving in implausible ways. The dialogue in particular was banal and didn't seem to lead anywhere or show anything. I was disappointed to say the least.

So for now, this ends my run of Homeric retellings with a feminist twist. I still have Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad to look forward to one day and Gareth Hinds graphic novel adaptation of The Iliad on my TBR pile...maybe the next readathon?

Favourite Quote: I didn't underline one single phrase or sentence.

Favourite or Forget: Forgettable.

Facts:

• Costa Novel Award 2018 Shortlist
• Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 Shortlist
• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

9/20 Books of Summer Winter
Sydney 19℃
Dublin 18℃

Circe by Madeline Miller

I recently read and loved The Song of Achilles, and couldn't really understand why I had waited so long to read a book that was so obviously designed to appeal to my reading temperament. Ancient Greek mythology, historical fiction, women's issues and award winning book all packed into one delightful package.

I was determined not to make the same mistake with Madeline Miller's second book, Circe.

Eight years in the making, for the early fans of The Song of Achilles, Circe would have definitely been worth the wait. I discovered a rich, engrossing, fabulous ride into the Ancient Greek world of gods, goddesses, nymphs and legends all told from the perspective of the daughter of the sun god Helios and the ocean nymph, Perse.

Circe, the nymph of potions and herbs, has long fascinated me thanks to a visually stunning painting by J. W. Waterhouse that I spotted in one of my early visits to the Art Gallery of NSW gift shop. A print of Circe Invidiosa has been hanging on my wall ever since.

I love the colour of the liquid in the bowl as it flows into the sea (that I now know was used to turn the beautiful naiad, Scylla into an ugly, deadly monster) and I love the look of incredible intent and purpose on Circe's face. This is a woman who will not be crossed or deterred from her course. Beauty and power, good and bad reside in her actions. I've always wanted to know what she was thinking about at this moment.

Miller gives me options to ponder. 

I moved straight-backed, as if a great brimming bowl rested in my hands. The dark liquid rippled as I walked, always at the point of overflow, yet never flowing.

Circe Invidiosa (1892) - J. W. Waterhouse

Telling the well-known and much loved story of Odyssey's travels via a feminist lens is not new. Pat Barker went there recently with The Silence of the Girls and Margaret Atwood has also been there with The Penelopiad, which, like Penelope herself, is still waiting patiently on my TBR. (I'm sure there are more examples, but I'm too tired to search them out tonight). 

I enjoy these modern interpretations of ancient stories. A lot. 

Back in my twenties I dabbled wit a few Marion Zimmer Bradley retellings - The Mists of Avalon and The Fall of Atlantis in particular. But don't get my started on my Arthurian obsession!

The ancient myths and legends were guideposts for the people of the time to help them to explain the world they lived in, gave meaning to their lives, validated their experiences and entertained. Generally this world was a world of men.

Our lives now are far more equal, balanced and diverse. Acceptance and openness are the norms we have come to expect in our lives and in our literature. No longer is, humbling women the chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

Miller has reclaimed the role of women in this world of men. They are not just put there to be the playthings of men. Their lives are not to be judged or explained by men alone. 

With this retelling, Miller has turned a somewhat chest-thumping, male-ego excursion into adventure and boastful escapades (The Iliad) into a more human, more authentic and more possible version of events simply because it considers more than one perspective.

In these modern retellings women have active roles, they have agency over their life choices and they have their own opinions and ideas.

I, for one, rejoice at this modern turn of events. And I wait with baited breath for Miller's next venture into this ancient world.

Favourite Quotes:

That is one thing gods and mortal share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.

Every moment mortals died, by shipwreck and sword, by wild beasts and wild men, by illness, neglect and age. It was their fate...the story that they all shared. No matter how vivid they were in life, no matter how brilliant, no matter the wonders they made, they came to dust and smoke. Meanwhile every petty and useless god would go on sucking down the bright air until the stars went dark. 

Favourite Character: Circe, naturally.

Favourite or Forget: One of my best reads this year so far. It was gorgeous, epic and enchanting! I'm very disappointed that Circe did not win The Women's Prize this year.

Facts:

• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

5/20 Books of SummerWinter

Sydney 16℃

Dublin 18℃

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

What a hoot!

I wasn't expecting a neo-noir comedy from such a grim title, but I had some genuine laugh out loud moments throughout My Sister, the Serial Killer. Oyinkan Braithwaite has written a punchy, sharp, witty story that blew in like a breath of fresh air in this year's Women's Prize shortlist.

One of the reasons why I love to read the various shortlists and longlists is for the surprises they throw up - for the books I would probably never read otherwise. Not because I have anything in particular against said books, but simply because there are so many books out there and I can only read so many. We all make decisions about what books we usually choose to read. We have preferred genres, topics, writing styles, We have pet interests and passions that guide our choices. We're influenced by book clubs, pretty covers, word of mouth, bookseller recommendations and publicity blurbs. Our mood, phase of life and even the weather all impact on our reading habits. Every good book that crosses our path, feels like a little miracle of good luck and serendipity.

So many good books (or otherwise) slip under our radars. But getting a major book award nomination suddenly elevates a book into the wider public gaze. Bloggers blog about them, papers publish interviews and reviews and the authors suddenly appear on podcasts, morning TV programs and get invited to writer's festivals.

The cover and title of My Sister, the Serial Killer caught my eye when it first appeared on our shelves at work. It sounded intriguing, but contemporary noir thrillers are not my usually high on my reading agenda. It took being shortlisted for it to actually make it's way onto my TBR pile. And it took just finishing a rather intense, lengthy book and feeling in the need for a shorter, lighter, palate cleansing read for me to pick it up this week.

It was an utter delight from start to finish.

I loved the rhythmic, snappy language. I loved both sisters, despite their obvious flaws (they reminded me of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood with one being the reserved, careful, responsible sister and the other being carefree, careless and impulsive). I loved the humour that hid much darker secrets and disturbing childhoods. I also really enjoyed the glimpses into daily life in Lagos and the customs and traditions of modern life in Nigeria.

What appeared to be a light, easy read actually concealed much tougher issues behind it's shiny exterior. The effects of domestic childhood abuse on subsequent generations and the serious psychological pain it leaves were addressed subtly as too were the specific issues that women face in Nigeria (including child brides).

Favourite Quote:

I know better than to take life directions from someone without a moral compass.

Favourite Character: The eldest sister, Korede. I love her assessment of the situation. She describes, her younger, killer sister, Ayoola as being "completely oblivious to all but her own needs" and "she is incapable of practical underwear". Her obsessive cleaning habit and precise organisational skills tell their own story,

The things that will go into my handbag are laid out on my dressing table.

Two packets of pocket tissues, on 30-centiliter bottle of water, one first aid kit, one packet of wipes, one wallet, one tube of hand cream, one lip balm, one phone, one tampon, one rape whistle.

Basically the essentials for every woman. 

Favourite or Forget: No need to reread this one, but thoroughly enjoyed it and will look out for whatever Braithwaite does next.

Fascinating Facts:  I first came across the tradition of ten year anniversaries to commemorate the passing of loved ones in Amor Towles' A Gentleman of Moscow. I was surprised/curious to see that it was also a part of Nigerian life. I hadn't heard about this custom before but it sounds like such a healthy thing to do.

It has been ten years now (since our father died) and we are expected to celebrate him, to throw an anniversary party in honour of his life.

Even if your relationship with the dead person in question was problematic!

Facts:

• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
• Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019
• Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2019

Book 2/20 Books of Summer (winter)
I finished this book on Tuesday when it only reached 14℃ in Sydney. We had wind coming off snow in the mountains and rainy, grey skies. It was a miserable day perfect for curling up with a good book. On Tuesday Dublin reached a balmy, summery 12℃!

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Bel Canto was our May book club choice. It was a reread for several of the members, but for me it was my very first time. I'm now wondering why on earth I left it so long to read.

Bel Canto is a glorious story about the power of song to soothe the beast within us all and to bring us together, regardless of class, culture, language or education.

I had no idea what to expect from this story initially; I knew nothing about it at all. I thought, perhaps, that it was a story about the opera. Imagine my shock when the the story begins with a dramatic hostage situation in a South American vice-presidential home one night in the middle of a private party for a Japanese delegation.

The bel canto reference is for the opera singer, Roxane, engaged to sing at the party. Her voice personifies the musical definition of 'full, rich, broad tone and smooth phrasing'. She has the entire party in her thrall, including the future terrorists hiding in the walls waiting to spring out and begin the hostage drama.

Patchett subtly explores the Stockholm syndrome that ensues. In psychological terms it is an alliance between the hostages and their captors designed to act as a survival strategy. Patchett shows us, that in this particular story, it can work both ways as the terrorists also become attached to their hostages. According to wikipedia, Stolkholm syndrome is seen as an irrational and possibly dangerous situation. Patchett shows us the logic, the necessity and the naturalness of this syndrome. It is simply a matter of one human being reaching out, responding to and connecting with another. It becomes inevitable.

Bel Canto is about humanity and what makes us human. It's about the things that bring us together, rather than tear us apart. It's the power of music and beauty to save us all.

First published 2001

Favourite Character: Carmen - brave, smart and caring but caught up in a situation out of her control.

Favourite Quote: "When I hear Roxane sing I am still able to think well of the world," Gen said. "This is a world in which someone could have written such music, a world in which she can still sing that music with so much compassion. That's proof of something, isn't it?"

Favourite or Forget: I will never forget this story.

Facts:

• Based on the Japanese embassy hostage crisis (also called the Lima Crisis) of 1996–1997 in Lima, Peru.
• Winner of the 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction (now the Women's Prize).
• Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
• I was in a choir for several years - we called ourselves Bel Canto.

The Green Road by Anne Enright

I finally got around to reading The Green Road thanks to Cathy's #ReadIreland Month. It has been sitting on my TBR pile since 2016.

Over my years of blogging, I've come to realise that writing a rave review about a book I really enjoyed, if not loved and adored, is actually harder to do, than writing about those books that are fine reads but didn't quite reach the heights of ecstasy or move me into speechlessness.

The Green Road was such a wonderful, engaging, poignant read after a bout of books that were fine stories mostly which had failed to move me or delight me. I wonder if it was a coincidence that this bout of books were all written by men? By the end of the Winton, I felt an overwhelming sense of desperation to read a book written by a woman. Either way, I'm left feeling rather bemused about how to write an adequate response that does this glorious book justice.

The story of the Madigan family is a slight story in someway. There is no major crisis or earth shattering family secret. The Madigan's are just a regular family with the usual (in Irish terms) problems, misconceptions and issues.

We start with a series of stories seen from the perspective of each of the four children, Constance, Dan, Emmet and Hanna. We see the fall out of Dan choosing to leave home (for the priesthood, which causes his mother to take to her bed for a week!) via the baby sister's eyes. Ten years later we see him again in New York - a failed priest still coming to terms with his sexuality. The other brother makes his way to Africa as a UNICEF field worker whilst the eldest daughter has stayed in Ireland, married well, had a clutch of children and is battling with her weight. We cycle back to see Hanna, now all grown up, not quite making it as an actor, with a baby of her own and an alcohol problem.

Each of these chapters could almost be a story in their own right. Enright has the ability to weave a sense of place into each chapter so thoroughly, that shifting onto the next one is a little jarring at the start. Ardeevin, County Clare is vividly drawn, as too is AIDS ravaged New York and the hardships of Segou, Mali. Each sibling has attempted to find their own place in the world, their own sense of purpose, all the while their mother's voice and their childhood angst rings in their ears.

Their tale is the usual family tale of coming to terms with the image of your mother as you experienced her as a child, against the mother you wished she had been with the woman she really is. Rosaleen is annoying, at times manipulative and perhaps not quite grown up and at peace with her childhood. In other words, she's a regular woman trying to deal (or not) with her own issues as she brings up a family.

Enright writes with compassion, humour and insight. Like real life, nothing is wrapped up in a tidy bow, for the simple reason that the story goes on. One way or another, we always go on.

The second half of the book centres around Christmas 2005, when all the siblings come home together for the first time in a very long time. The catalyst? Their mother has just declared she is ready to sell the family home. And the Green Road of the title? It's a local road that leads through the fields of County Clare to the beach,

Fanore, Burren, County Clare

This road turned into the green road that went across the Burren, high above the beach at Fanore, and this was the most beautiful road in the world, bar none, her granny said -famed in song and story - the rocks gathering briefly into walls before lapsing back into field, the little stony pastures whose flowers were sweet and rare.

The Green Road was shortlisted for the 2016 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award and the Costa Book Award.
Enright won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award for 2016.

#ReadIreland18

#Begorrathon18

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

As most of you know, the past couple of months or so has been rather 'meh' for me and my family. As a result I've been searching through my rather extensive (okay, out of control) TBR piles for comforting, cosy, entertaining reads to ease me through this time.

The Essex Serpent came highly recommended to me via a colleague as exactly that kind of read.

Right from the beginning I went along for the ride that Sarah Perry set up so lushly. The Victorian time frame, the hint of danger, mystery and myth as well as a full cast of engaging characters kept me engaged and eager to pick up my book at the end of each day.

As most of you know, I don't write book summaries. But if you want to know what the book is about, without actually, you know, reading it yourself, and you've managed to miss all the talk it, you can read the Goodreads blurb here.

Personally, I loved the focus on all the ways we love - parental love, friendship, the first flush of romantic love, unrequited love and the long term, loyal love of a happy marriage. Having taken the time to consider Perry's epigraph, I was conscious of her intent the whole way through and it added to me reading experience.

I found The Essex Serpent to to a warm, generous and joyous read. Highly recommended as a holiday read or for those feeling jaded and in need of a good old-fashion reading romp.

The gorgeous William Morris-esque cover, designed by Peter Dyer, was simply an added bonus every time I picked it up.

The Essex Serpent has also been read and reviewed by Simon @SavidgeReads and Cosy Books.

It was shortlisted for the 2016 Costa Novel Award and longlisted for this year's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

First Love by Gwendoline Riley

I have yet to read Turgenev's First Love, so I cannot assess the claim made by Alan Warner on the back cover of my edition of Gwendoline Riley's First Love that they are not too far apart. According to Warner they have 'the same panoptic, all-too-human lurches, afflictions and doubts, gorgeously exposed.'

I'm not sure how 'all-seeing' and 'all-too-human' Neve's story is. But for anyone who has found themselves in an unsavoury, bullying relationship, this story would contain many truths.

Fortunately I've only ever witnessed bullying relationships from afar, but Neve's story made me feel so claustrophobic and so caught up in the drama of her stumbling from one poor choice to another, that I felt like I was intimately involved in the dysfunction.

Riley deftly draws the line between adult Neve's unhealthy relationships to those between her parents and the way they parented her and her brother. Edwyn's life is less exposed, but we are given enough clues to see that he also suffered from poor parenting and relationship models. He is the classic case of someone who is only able to see the world through his own lens. Everything he throws at Neve verbally and accuses her of is actually an insight into his own thoughts and feelings.

There were times when I wanted to shake Neve out of her complacency and learned helplessness. It was frustrating to see so little personal growth and awareness in a character. By the end, it felt like she would always be nothing more than the product of her environment and upbringing.

I'm not sure if that's the lesson Riley wanted us to get from her novel. That the individual is doomed to live out the mistakes that their childhood inflicted on them seems terribly sad and fatalistic. But maybe free-will, self-responsibility and choice is only something that those lucky enough to have a safe and loving upbringing can claim?

First Love was provocative and challenging at times, but it wasn't really a 'story of love' like the blurb suggested. It was more like people searching for their idea of love, but not being capable of recognising it or participating in it in a healthy way.

I'm not sure why this book was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize this year. Yes, it has some fine writing, but Neve's stuck-ness and despair was never overcome and I ultimately felt let down by the ending that resolved nothing and allowed no-one to move forward. I still have no idea why Neve chooses to stay with Edwyn, except for the usual psychological reasons that any abused person chooses to stay with their abuser. But it's not love, no matter how they dress it up.

For another point of view about this book try Simon@SavidgeReads (who might help you see some layers that I didn't) and My Booking Great Blog.

Fifth book completed and fourth book reviewed for #20booksofwinter

Epigraph Philosophy

I love a good epigraph.

A well-chosen, thoughtfully considered epigraph can set just the right tone for the book journey you are about to embark on. However so many authors spend much time and effort on finding a fitting epigraph only for it to be skimmed over by most readers.

For the reader who does consider the epigraph, its true significance may not become apparent until the end of the book, by which time it has been long forgotten.

I want to rectify this sad, sad wrong, here today.

I'm currently reading The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry.

Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890's, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, The Essex Serpent has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way. 

They are Cora Seaborne and Will Ransome. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist is enthralled, convinced the beast may be a real undiscovered species. But Will sees his parishioners' agitation as a moral panic, a deviation from true faith. Although they can agree on absolutely nothing, as the seasons turn around them in this quiet corner of England, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart. 

Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, this novel is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different guises it can take.

Perry begins her tale with an epigraph from Michel de Montaigne, On Friendship.

Straight away I had a personal connect to this quote. It sums up beautifully how Mr Books and I feel about each other (although, apparently, Montaigne himself didn't believe that women were capable of this level of emotion, but that's another story!)

Montaigne's quote also gives me another clue about the romance that is at the centre of this story.

Furthermore, on the blurb for Montaingne's book, On Friendship, it says,

Michel de Montaigne was the originator of the modern essay form; in these diverse pieces he expresses his views on relationships, contemplates the idea that man is no different from any animal, argues that all cultures should be respected, and attempts, by an exploration of himself, to understand the nature of humanity.

Not only the epigraph, but the author of the epigraph, highlight Perry's intentions in The Essex Serpent. In this case, the pertinence of the epigraph is apparent from the beginning.

This post is now beginning to feel rather meme-ish to me.

Have you come across a particularly meaningful, insightful or startling epigraph in your recent reading?

I'd love to know what it is and why it took your fancy.

Did you connect to it personally?
Did it put you off or lead you into the story?
Did the quote only make sense once you got into the story? Or at the end?
What does a little bit of googling reveal about your epigraph?

If you'd like to write your own #epigraphphilosophy post please add you link in the comments below.
Use <a href="URL">word</a> to make your link hyper.

If this becomes a thing, I would happily consider another name/hashtag, if any of you have a talent in naming memes!

To finish, I leave you with another Montaigne quote,

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt

So many various and varied roads led me to read What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt this week.

Firstly, she is one of my dear friend's favourite writers (along with Paul Auster). I have resisted for several years now for no particular reason. However, Hustvedt's books are always there, lurking in the back of my mind, waiting for me to pay them attention.

In the past few weeks I have read three truly amazing, but very different books that have a connection to either New York City, art, post-modernism, love or loss - The Museum of Modern Love, Exit West and Insomniac City.

Last week, as I was unpacking boxes at work, the red tinted edges of Sceptre's 30th anniversary special edition of What I Loved grabbed my attention. I flicked open the pages randomly and landed on the top of page 103 and read,

Not once in all my years of marriage had I asked myself whether I loved Erica. For about a year after we met, I had been thoroughly unhinged by her. My heart had pounded. My nerves had tensed with longing until I could almost here them buzz. My appetite had vanished, and I had withdrawal symptoms when I wasn't with her.

I was hooked.
This brief passage reached out to me and insisted I read the rest of it now. It felt real and it felt urgent. It was also set in NYC and featured an artist as one of the main characters.
I was in!

Hustvedt divided the book into three acts. The first act was the getting to know you section that occasionally dragged a little.
Leo is our narrator and protagonist. We become intimately connected to his wife Erica, their friends, Bill, Violet and Lucille and the children Matthew and Mark. Bill is an artist - his work fascinates Leo, which is what brings them altogether.

I found the descriptions of Bill's art work overly long and, well, tedious, at times, although I gradually realised that they gave us many psychological insights into Bill's character as well as allowing Hudsvedt many opportunities to explore her ideas about perception and seeing and interpretation.

Early on Leo remarks that one of Bill's paintings reminds him of Jan Steen's woman at her morning toilet which he saw at the Rijksmuseum. Bill acknowledges the connection and says,

I'm not interested in nudes. They're too arty, but I'm really interested in skin. 

They note how you can see the imprint in the woman's skin made by the string that keeps the top of the sock up. Hustvedt plays with the notion of what is skin deep and how what we do (and think) impacts on our bodies. Impressions, influences and surface details versus intent, consciousness and internal meaning also get explored throughout the book.

Naturally I had to source this painting to see it for myself.

Woman at her Toilet, Jan Havickszoon Steen, 1655 - 1660

Curiously Steen seems to have painted this idea twice. The painting above is the one that hangs in the Rijksmuseum. The one below is part of the Royal Collection Trust.

I now wonder if this example of duality was a deliberate choice by Hustvedt or merely happy coincidence.

A Woman at her Toilet 1663 Jan Steen

Act two reveals why the title is written in the past tense. The pace and tension within the story also picks up from here. If you have been struggling with the first chapter, I urge you to wait until the second to make up your mind about whether to continue or not.

I loved the vague sense of foreboding and dread that simmered under the surface during the final two acts. Love, grief, hope, disappointment, trust, despair, loyalty and forgiveness are just some of the heavy emotions that swirl around our characters. It was an emotional roller coaster ride that I couldn't, and didn't want to get off.

I'm always fascinated when an author writes in the voice of someone of the opposite sex. Colm Toibin has impressed me in the past with his ability to write from the female perspective and here, I feel that Hustvedt has captured the male voice so well.

She said in an interview with Bookslut in 2008,

Writing as a man is not an act of translation but means becoming a man while you are working, not unlike an actor becoming his role. I truly believe that most of us have men and women within us and can hear the voices of both sexes, as well as feel the nuanced and sometimes blatant differences between them. A male voice necessarily carries more authority that a woman’s simply because as a culture we give men that privilege. As a woman, I take pleasure in adopting the dominant male tone and assuming a central role, but I have also found that wrenching my perspective away from the feminine, I’ve been able to discover feelings, images, and thoughts I wouldn’t have had without the transformation.

The ageing Leo makes a cameo appearance in Hustvedt's later novel, The Sorrows of an American (2008) a story about immigration that follows the lives of siblings, Erik and Inga. Hustvedt said in the same interview that she 'missed Leo terribly and felt compelled to bring him back.'

I will now have to read The Sorrows of an American as I also miss Leo terribly now that I have finished What I Loved.

Hustvedt is an intelligent writer who embraces her intelligence. I never felt like she was showing off for the sake of being clever. She was writing about something that meant a lot to her, that stirred her passions - intellectually and emotionally.

Inga’s irritation with American culture borders on outrage and reflects my own criticisms of life in the United States today. I once considered writing a book called Culture Nausea (which I proceeded to give to Inga) in which I planned to rail against media cant, rampant anti-intellectualism, political verbiage, the revolting trampling over the rule of law, the wholesale adoption of received ideas without the slightest examination, the lust for the ugly confession, and innumerable other thorns in my side. (Bookslut 2008 interview)

I suspect most of her books reflect Inga's irritation and outrage, certainly What I Loved does and I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed reading a book that engaged my brain and my heart at the same time.

What I Loved was longlisted for the 2003 Orange Prize (now the Baileys Women's Prize)

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

My Name is Lucy Barton might seem like just another simple mother/daughter story, but like all of Elizabeth Strout's stories there is much more going on under the surface than first meets the eye.

Lucy Barton is in hospital for an extended medical procedure. Her husband, busy with his work and their two young girls, arranges for her mother to come and stay awhile to help out while Lucy slowly recovers.

Simple, right?

However, we soon learn that Lucy and her mother haven't spoken in years, that Lucy's mother naps in the bedside chair rather than staying in a hotel or with her son-in-law, that they avoid talking about Lucy's husband or children or her New York life and they tread very carefully around Lucy's childhood memories.

How do we find out what the daily fabric of a life was?

The effects of abject poverty and dysfunction, the understanding that people can only do they best they can in any given situation and that that best is often not enough for those dependant on them, imbue this slight book.

We all love imperfectly.

Perspective, memory and compassion are also significant themes for Strout. Themes that she loves to tease out and explore via her characters.

She was not telling exactly the truth, she was always staying away from something.

I suspect that My Name is Lucy Barton was also a chance for Strout to address some of her ideas about the nature of writing and being a writer.

I like writers who try to tell you something truthful.

She wrote about people who worked hard and suffered and also had good things happen to them.

Her job as a writer of fiction was to report on the human condition, to tell us who we are and what we think and what we do.

I wonder if anyone ever 'accused' Strout of writing with a softness of compassion like they did her character, Sarah Payne? And why anyone would think that that was a bad thing?

The power of language and words to hide, reveal or obfuscate the truth gets a look in,

How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

as do some simple home truths on how to treat (or not treat) others.

I think it's the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down.

Do not ever think you are better than someone.

I don't normally fill a post with book quotes, but I just adore Strout's use of words. I love how she can pack a great deal of emotional truth into a few simply turned phrases.

They deserve to be highlighted and savoured.

My Name is Lucy Barton was longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Women's Prize and the Man Booker Prize.

The Adventures of Miss Petitfour by Anne Michaels

I read Fugitive Pieces around about the time it won the Orange Prize for Fiction (which is now the Women's Prize).

I fell in love with Anne Michaels ability to weave magic with her words. I remember being completely under her spell for the entire story. I felt bereft when it finished.

When I recently spotted that Michaels had written a children's book, I swooned with anticipation.

How could I not fall instantly in love?

Cats, delicious food, magic flying tablecloths and lots of gorgeous wordplays littered the pages of this illustrated chapter book. It all looked and sounded so promisingly delightful.

But something didn't zing for me.

Each chapter had lots of fun wordy digressions,

Some words are like a hailstorm during the middle of a picnic, or a flat tyre on a lovely journey, or a fallen tree across a path, and these words stop a story immediately and swivel it off in another direction entirely. Words like BUT, HOWEVER, IF ONLY, SADLY and UNFORTUNATELY.

Sadly, for me, these wordy digressions were more exciting than the actual story. The adventures were not the right size for me (see pg 11), they were even decidedly, ho-hum (see pg 18).

Which is such a pity.

The back cover has a lovely quote that says,

Five utterly captivating stories of gentle adventure, delicious edibles (with cheese for the cats), occasional peril and heart-zinging warmth.

Which helped me realise that what this book was missing was the emotion.
I felt no peril, no zing or glow of warmth. In the end I didn't care what happened to Miss Petitfour or her cats.

I really, really, really wanted to love this book, which is why I have spent so much time trying to work out what went wrong.

This is now my second attempt to get into the story.
I gave it up a few weeks ago thinking my life was too busy and hectic to appreciate it properly.

I have now had a lovely relaxing, soothing summer holiday. But this quaint, gentle tale still failed to capture my imagination or my heart.

Unfortunately, I need more drama than this story offers up. I need more character development. I need a reason to go along for the ride.

And Emma Block's sweet, charming illustrations have not been reason enough.

And the Winner Is....

It's that time of year again when the book world goes crazy with longlists, shortlists and highly commended's! 

No matter what you think about the various awards, their merits & selection criteria's, it's very difficult not to get caught up in the buzz.

In Australia, the Indie Book Award has come and gone... 

and the Stella longlist has been whittled down to a 6 book shortlist.

The Miles Franklin Award began it's 2015 journey with an impressive longlist. 

The shortlist is due on the 18th May, with the winner announced on the 23rd June.

 In the UK, the Folio Prize celebrated it's second year by awarding it's Prize to Family Life a couple of weeks ago.

 And the Baileys Women's Prize released it's (dare I say) ridiculous large longlist.

 

Which they quickly shortlisted to the books below.

The winner will be announced on the 3rd June.

This week the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award also released their shortlist with the winner announced on the 17th June.

I'm pleased to see Nora Webster on a couple of lists.
I hope to read A Spool of Blue Thread & Harvest soon (they're both on my TBR pile).
How to be Both and Paying Guests intrigue and repel me at the same time.

I think I'm the only Australian who hasn't read Burial Rites - purely because the hype got to me!

I've just finished Heat and Light & feel very kindly about its chances for taking out the Stella, although The Golden Age will probably give it a good run for the money (so I believe - another book for my ever expanding wishlist!)

Do you have any favourite's in the running this year?
Do you care?
Is there an award where you try to read the entire shortlist prior to the winning announcement?