So we know know that the Bailey’s Prize went, not entirely unexpectedly, to Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half Formed Thing. I loved that the prize went to a new novel that had difficulty finding a publisher. A Girl is a Half Formed Thing is a bleak, desperate novel
So the Bailey’s Prize short list was announced last night. In terms of accuracy I fared very badly – only two of my wish list appeared on the short list (Americanah and Burial Rites), although if I’d gone for prediction, I’d have had a better strike rate. (Honestly.) The long
Twenty novels later, it’s time to write my wishlist for the Baileys’ Prize Shortlist. Reading the long list has been a wonderful experience and there are no books I would be surprised to see on the shortlist. There are two lists in my mind – the Predictions list and the
In 1999, Suzanne Berne won the Orange Prize with A Crime in the Neighbourhood. The Orange Prize has been reborn as the Baileys’ Prize and Berne is once again on the list with a different crime in another neighborhood. Littlefield, according to a (fictional) survey, is the sixth best place
Novels set in the First and Second World Wars continue to come thick and fast – Anna Hope’s Wake, Louise Walters’ Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase, Audrey Magee’s The Undertaking, Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Alison Macleod’s Unexploded to name just a few of the very recent ones. They’re wonderful novels; however
One of six debuts on the Bailey’s Prize long list, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon is set over the course of three hours in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan, close to the border with Afghanistan. Three brothers all set off for separate mosques for their Friday prayers
Deborah Kay Davies’ first novel, True Things About Me, saw its author selected as one of twelve best new British novelists by the BBC’s Culture show, and was selected by Lionel Shriver as her personal book of 2011. Reasons She Goes to the Woods is a confident and accomplished second
Hannah Kent discovered the story of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman to be executed for murder in Iceland, during a year as an exchange student, and Burial Rites is the result of Kent’s desire to give the condemned woman a voice. Kent’s novel featured alongside those of Man Booker longlistees
Anna Quindlen is a name new to me, but I seem to have come a little late to the party. Still Life with Breadcrumbs is Quindlen’s seventh novel; she’s been number one on the New York Times bestseller list with her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, and she’s
The popularity of the Second World War as a subject for a novel shows no signs of waning. Alison Macleod’s Unexploded was longlisted for the Man Booker last year; Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and Louise Walter’s Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase were both eligible for the Bailey’s Prize, and The Undertaking