Booker Prize shortlist

xSkarloey

Just got a copy of 'J' by Howard Jacobson, not because it's Booker shortlisted but because I read Howard Jacobson anyway.

Has anyone else taken a look at it or any of the other shortlisted titles this year?

ToneControl

Not read any yet
I buy the full set from bookpeople every year: always less than £30, often includes hardbacks.
10% off code currently available

xSkarloey

@ToneControl. Good for you. You must be far more diciplined and dedicated in your reading habits than I am.

Do you normally end up agreeing with the Judges over the winner?

jellyroll

I've read "To rise again at a decent hour." I'd give it 7/10. Entertaining and well written but a little thin on plot. 

I have "We are beside ourselves" in my pile to read.

On "J" - after reading the Finkler question, I concluded that Jacobson was better at writing humorous smut ("Coming from Behind") than attempting more serious stuff.

ToneControl

Skarloey said:

@ToneControl. Good for you. You must be far more diciplined and dedicated in your reading habits than I am.

Do you normally end up agreeing with the Judges over the winner?

I never used to read much fiction.
I just save them up for when I work away or go on hols

Trying to form new habit to read at home, read 2 this month, but played guitar less :-(

I don't think I have agreed on the winners, probably because I care about the story more than the style
I work on the basis that they are all top-notch writing

Some are a bit depressing

I really liked all the 2011 list:

Jamrach's Menagerie	Canongate
Patrick deWitt	The Sisters Brothers	Granta Books
Esi Edugyan	Half-Blood Blues	Serpent’s Tail
Stephen Kelman	Pigeon English	Bloomsbury
A D Miller	Snowdrops

Jamrach's menagerie was the best for me
sister brothers, good too

The Sense of an Ending was good but maudlin

I haven't read all the 2012 or 2013 ones yet - not worked away from home!!
Swimming Home was annoying

The Testament of Mary was interesting

I liked Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies

I suggest the book people offer since it's so cheap, even compared to amazon

nice list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_and_shortlisted_authors_of_the_Booker_Prize_for_Fiction

xSkarloey

@jellyroll Finkler wasn't bad (certainly not as bad as some say), but Kalooki Nights is probably his best overall novel.  

@ToneControl. Thanks for the link. I've worked out that completely by chance I've read virtually nothing on that list of winners and shortlisted books. Apart from Finkler, which I'd have read anyway, the only other Booker winner I seem to've read is Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald. I thought it was alright but a bit too much like a middling Radio 4 afternoon play stretched too far, i.e. getting far too serious about relatively unimportant things. 

Anyway, enjoy your reading. 

p90fool

ToneControl said:

Not read any yet
I buy the full set from bookpeople every year: always less than £30, often includes hardbacks.
10% off code currently available

Wow, I should do this, I plow through good fiction at a rate of knots and this looks like a way to set myself up for a while.

littlegreenman

To quote FZ, "I think it's good that books still exist, but they generally make me sleepy"

ToneControl

ToneControl said:

Not read any yet
I buy the full set from bookpeople every year: always less than £30, often includes hardbacks.
10% off code currently available

they just arrived - ALL 6 are hardback, £27 the lot with the 10% off

free postage if you order something to get over £30

HAL9000

My experience of Booker Prize nominations is that they're well written but almost invariably as dull as Bridgwater ditchwater. Loads of adjectives but you can wait an awful long time for a verb to come along. Been caught out a few times in the past but now avoid anything with Booker Prize written anywhere on the cover. (Ducks to avoid incoming accusations of Philistinery - look, I've invented a word.)

xSkarloey

The Jacobson book is shaping up quite well.

xSkarloey

littlegreenman;349635" said:

To quote FZ, "I think it's good that books still exist, but they generally make me sleepy"

I like FZ buti n that instance he just wasn't looking hard enough.

jonnyburgo

I read quite a bit, The Booker stuff tends to be quite worthy stuff, I like exciting stories.

GuitarMonkey

Skarloey said:

The Jacobson book is shaping up quite well.

I'll give it a go, although I hated Finkler. 

xSkarloey

@GuitarMonkey

I don't think Finkler was as bad as some would say. Some of the Amazon reviews were scathing, for example, but I think had a lot of people read other Jacobson they might have had a different opinion. It isn't his best book, but for all its faults it does do what Jacobson set out to do every time he publishes a novel, which is to challenge the reader and to make them think. 

The follow up, Zoo Time, was I thought pretty weak and attempted satire but overall came across as too complaining to the point of being shrill. 

The current one J is better. I'm about 50 pages in. It isn't a comic novel like his other work. I just worry that he and his his publishers haven't made him a hostage to critical fortune with this, because the blurb says it's a book to be talked of in the same breath as 1984 and Brave New World. I'm uneasy with puff like that, and if it reminds me of anything so far it's Jacobson without the jokes, mixed with JG Ballard with the violence toned down. 

GuitarMonkey

No Amazon review could possibly be scathing enough, although I did struggle on to the end.

Hoping that J will redeem the author in my view.