Sheep on a roof

Travelling all day, mainly through rain. We stopped on the A66 at an organic farm shop and cafe that happens to have sheep on the roof. This is the only photograph I took all day. We are now home, it is a wild night, the house is cold, but the fire is on. The winner of the Booker Prize will be announced tonight. So I have made a few notes below - just for anyone interested.


Booker Prize Shortlist

I challenged myself to read all six books before the announcement of the winner tonight and I did manage it . . . just! For anyone interested, I am going to note a few of my thoughts. These are my personal views based simply on a reading. I have not analysed or thought too much about it and I probably won’t agree with the judges, but here goes.


Joshua Ferris: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Howard Jacobson: J
I really struggled with these two books, finding it hard to make any sense of them. I won’t say any more, as I probably missed something very important, but there is no way either of these would have been on my short list. (I have an awful feeling that J is in with a chance, but I hope not)

Neel Mukherjee: The Lives of Others
This could be the winner, but it would not be my choice. It’s a huge book, in many senses. It takes quite some reading and I think it is flawed. It is set in Calcutta in the late 1960s and the bits describing the extended family living in one house, trying to cope with a changing world are excellent. It also certainly highlights in a graphic way inequalities in society. I was less convinced by the descriptions of the extremist political activism and I found the violence and torture very difficult to cope with.

Karen Joy Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
A book dealing with an unusual situation in a clever way, asking questions about what it is to be human and about family relationships generally. Well worth reading, but I don’t think it is substantial enough to stand against a couple of the others.

Ali Smith: How to be Both
I would recommend this one, although you do have to stick with it at first, as it can be confusing – as it is meant to be. It is in two parts and some books start with one part and some with the other. But the two parts intertwine in an ingenious way. A very clever book, funny in parts, poignant in others. Brilliantly written. Hearing Ali read from the book last night made me realise just what an innovative book it is and encouraged me to read it again. I would be happy if this one won.

Richard Flanagan: The Narrow Road to the Deep North
One of the reasons I do this reading exercise is that it makes me read books I might never have read otherwise and this is a very good example. I would not have even picked this up, as I just don’t like war stories. I even put off reading it, thinking I really would not like it. But I am so glad I did read it. It is about a Japanese POW camp and the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway, so yes it is extremely harrowing in parts. But it has to be, as most of the book is about the impact of this event on the people involved, on both sides, and on the following generation of Australians. Past and present are mingled together and a love story stretches across the whole book. I think this is a brilliant book, beautifully written, not a word out of place and boy did he read it well last night. It’s an important book, one that everyone should read. And this is the one I would select as winner, no question at all.