What do you make of the controversy about the Man Booker shortlist this year? Book bloggers like myself had plenty to discuss as the debate about readability versus literary quality rages on. I have some sympathy for the judges having more than a couple of partly-read Booker winners lying around the house. I never did make it all the way to the end of The Finkler Question last year and I still haven’t got around to buying Wolf Hall even though I’ve been meaning to read it for ages.
I don’t know about you, but I’m disappointed Alan Hollinghurst didn’t make the shortlist with The Stranger’s Child. As far as I am concerned, it’s the best book I have read so far this year. That said, I haven’t had time yet to read very many of the long or short-listed titles yet. I did read Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending which I liked very much and which I have reviewed already on this blog. I’m planning to read Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English and AD Miller’s Snowdrops. I’m also going to buy Carol Birch’s Jamrach’s Menagerie, partly because the reviews reminded me of The Life of Pi which is such an exciting and surprising novel and I’ve already bought Sebastian Barry’s On Canaan’s Side, although I haven’t yet got around to reading it.
How about you? Which ones will you read this year? And which ones have you left lying around half-read from previous years?
