Our five favourite books from the Man Booker prize longlist
The Man Booker prize longlist has just been announced, so we've picked our five favourites
Our five favourite books from the Man Booker prize longlist
Forget picking up a few random books at the airport and hoping for the best; the Man Booker prize have just announced their long-list.
You're guaranteed a wonderful read picking up any of the nominated books – indeed many have already garnered awards like the Costa book of the year and the Pulitzer prize for literature. But, for those who lack the time to read every single potential Booker prize winner, we've condensed the long list down to our favourites.
Paul Auster - 4, 3, 3, 1
If the summer lull leaves you hankering for a challenge, Paul Auster’s weighty and ambitious new novel is well worth sinking your teeth into. At 880 pages 4,3,2,1 takes concentration, commitment and strong arms.
In return you get four times the story – sort of. In a fiercely intelligent take on the ‘what if’ concept behind Sliding Doors, it gives us the same life from four parallel possibilities. The prose drills into the repercussions of decisions with deft detail and Auster’s characteristic panache.
Click here to buy on Amazon
Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13
McGregor is Britain's novelist of unseen in-between places: service stations, railside paths, council estates. He's willing to take the English novel away from a middle class milieu and show it the dingy, dreary world that's either ignored or bowdlerised by other writers.
From his investigation of life on a suburban street in his debut If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things to the portrayal of homelessness and alcoholism in Even the Dogs, McGregor's writing takes in the painfully ordinary and the ordinarily painful.
His short story collection This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You specialised in unexpected events occurring in banal environments, and this seems to be the focus of Reservoir 13 too.
When a teenage girl goes missing from a village in the Peak District, an initial frenzied search eventually dissipates into a sense of loss and regret; as is usual with McGregor, the event is an opportunity to examine the hidden lives of a community. Expect controlled prose and characters with stifled inner-lives.
Click here to buy on Amazon
Zadie Smith - Swing Time
If you don’t pause mid page and reread a sentence to savour the cadences and craft of the writing, are you even reading a Zadie Smith novel? Swing Time, her hotly-anticipated new book about two brown girls who want to be dancers, is as ambitious and stylistically accomplished as expected. It’s stuffed with ideas about race, identity, feminism, friendship, success, class and politics, but it’s not over-stuffed: weighty themes are brought to life with levity. Swing Time doesn’t have the zing of White Teeth, and it’s not the novel to convince any Zadie Smith sceptics, but, as committed fans we were not disappointed.
Click here to buy on Amazon
Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad
It’s the book that galvanised Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey. If that’s not enough, take our recommendation too. Historical/fantasy fiction charting the hellish reality of slavery in the American civil war sounds like something you’d have to work up to reading. But from the first page The Underground Railroad is compulsive. Colson Whitehead draws on harrowing histories and brings metaphor to life with a thrilling steampunk, sci-fi-worthy escape route. The genre-busting story of horror and hope follows Cora from a cotton plantation on a perilous journey, where each stop brings a new model of prejudice and abuse. It is harrowing, thought-provoking and, in the light of recent American political events, truly chilling.
Click here to buy on Amazon
Ali Smith - Autumn
It was only a matter of time until Brexit broke into contemporary literature. But to write a novel exploring the June 24 referendum for October publication is impressive even by Ali Smith’s prolific standards. Autumn is the first in what will be a quartet of novels charting the seasons. But this is much more than just a paean to mellow mists or a lament for the EU. Smith’s ever inventive narrative focuses on the relationship between a young woman and her elderly neighbour, through a thread of art historical mystery. It slips and slides through time to return to the all too recognisable, politically volatile present. The imagery surrounding the leave campaign may lack the nuance of extensive reflection, but the stylish, stream of consciousness prose and playful storytelling is vintage Ali Smith.
Click here to buy on Amazon
You're guaranteed a wonderful read picking up any of the nominated books – indeed many have already garnered awards like the Costa book of the year and the Pulitzer prize for literature. But, for those who lack the time to read every single potential Booker prize winner, we've condensed the long list down to our favourites.
Paul Auster - 4, 3, 3, 1
If the summer lull leaves you hankering for a challenge, Paul Auster’s weighty and ambitious new novel is well worth sinking your teeth into. At 880 pages 4,3,2,1 takes concentration, commitment and strong arms.
In return you get four times the story – sort of. In a fiercely intelligent take on the ‘what if’ concept behind Sliding Doors, it gives us the same life from four parallel possibilities. The prose drills into the repercussions of decisions with deft detail and Auster’s characteristic panache.
Click here to buy on Amazon
Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13
McGregor is Britain's novelist of unseen in-between places: service stations, railside paths, council estates. He's willing to take the English novel away from a middle class milieu and show it the dingy, dreary world that's either ignored or bowdlerised by other writers.
From his investigation of life on a suburban street in his debut If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things to the portrayal of homelessness and alcoholism in Even the Dogs, McGregor's writing takes in the painfully ordinary and the ordinarily painful.
His short story collection This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You specialised in unexpected events occurring in banal environments, and this seems to be the focus of Reservoir 13 too.
When a teenage girl goes missing from a village in the Peak District, an initial frenzied search eventually dissipates into a sense of loss and regret; as is usual with McGregor, the event is an opportunity to examine the hidden lives of a community. Expect controlled prose and characters with stifled inner-lives.
Click here to buy on Amazon
Zadie Smith - Swing Time
If you don’t pause mid page and reread a sentence to savour the cadences and craft of the writing, are you even reading a Zadie Smith novel? Swing Time, her hotly-anticipated new book about two brown girls who want to be dancers, is as ambitious and stylistically accomplished as expected. It’s stuffed with ideas about race, identity, feminism, friendship, success, class and politics, but it’s not over-stuffed: weighty themes are brought to life with levity. Swing Time doesn’t have the zing of White Teeth, and it’s not the novel to convince any Zadie Smith sceptics, but, as committed fans we were not disappointed.
Click here to buy on Amazon
Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad
It’s the book that galvanised Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey. If that’s not enough, take our recommendation too. Historical/fantasy fiction charting the hellish reality of slavery in the American civil war sounds like something you’d have to work up to reading. But from the first page The Underground Railroad is compulsive. Colson Whitehead draws on harrowing histories and brings metaphor to life with a thrilling steampunk, sci-fi-worthy escape route. The genre-busting story of horror and hope follows Cora from a cotton plantation on a perilous journey, where each stop brings a new model of prejudice and abuse. It is harrowing, thought-provoking and, in the light of recent American political events, truly chilling.
Click here to buy on Amazon
Ali Smith - Autumn
It was only a matter of time until Brexit broke into contemporary literature. But to write a novel exploring the June 24 referendum for October publication is impressive even by Ali Smith’s prolific standards. Autumn is the first in what will be a quartet of novels charting the seasons. But this is much more than just a paean to mellow mists or a lament for the EU. Smith’s ever inventive narrative focuses on the relationship between a young woman and her elderly neighbour, through a thread of art historical mystery. It slips and slides through time to return to the all too recognisable, politically volatile present. The imagery surrounding the leave campaign may lack the nuance of extensive reflection, but the stylish, stream of consciousness prose and playful storytelling is vintage Ali Smith.
Click here to buy on Amazon
TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox