Man Booker Prize shortlist announced – and I've read only read one...

Hey readers,

I hope everyone had enjoyable holiday weekend!  I zipped over to Sacramento to bask in the warmth of sunshine and good friends.  Didn't get nearly as much reading done as one might hope.  So, for the calendar watchers among you, I'll note that I'm blowing off this week's Mailbox Monday post.  I skipped Monday this week, and there were only three books, so we'll just add them to next week's list.

No, there's something much more interesting to report on this week...  The race is heating up for the Man Booker Prize!  The longlist of 20 (IIRC) has been winnowed down to the traditional six.  And pundits and book-makers alike have been shocked that the presumed front-runner, Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child, did not make the cut.  Here are the books that did:

The Booker shortlist

Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)

Author of nine previous novels including Scapegallows and Turn Again Home – longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2003. Jamrach's Menagerie was inspired by the real-life sinking of a whale ship in 19th-century England and charts the fortunes of the charismatic Charles Jamrach, a leading wild animal dealer.

Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape – Random House)

The fourth novel by Barnes to be shortlisted for the Booker prize, yet he has never taken home the award. Focusing on a group of old school friends, this novella is a meditation on the themes of ageing, memory and regret.

AD Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)

The debut novel by one-time Moscow correspondent of The Economist, Snowdrops is a tense psychological thriller that unfolds over the course of a brutal Moscow winter. The book tells the story of a young Englishman caught up in a corrupt property deal in new Russia.

Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail)

The second Canadian on the shortlist. Esi Edugyan's second novel is partly set in the aftermath of the fall of Paris in 1940, following the fate of an arrested German, a black jazz trumpeter called Hieronymous Falk, and in Berlin 50 years later as his bandmates retrace his steps.

Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)

The second novel by the Canadian-born, Oregan-based author. The Sisters Brothers is a darkly comic western about two outlaw brothers who are hired killers – one reluctant, the other more gung-ho – as they reconcile their relationship during the west coast gold rush in 1851.

Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)

After finishing his degree, Stephen Kelman worked as a warehouse operative, a careworker, and in marketing and local government administration, until finally deciding to write in 2005. His first novel is written from the perspective of a seven eleven-year-old Ghanaian boy caught up in Peckham's gangland.

Full disclosure, I stole the book descriptions and photograph above from an article in London's Independent.  The correction in the last write-up is mine.  (Bad job, Independent.  Get your facts straight.)  But I know the character's age because it's the only book on the shortlist that I've read so far.  Click the title to see my review.

I also have a copy of Jamrach's Menagerie in my apartment that I've been wanting to get around to for months.  Well, it just moved up the TBR pile.  Look for a review soon.

However the title that is now the front-runner to win the prize is Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending.  Mr. Barnes has been shortlisted for the Booker three times previously, but has not won yet.  The cognoscenti seem to feel that this is his year.  The novel isn't due for it's U.S. release until late January, but it is now on a lot of people's radar, including mine.

So, readers, have you read any of these books?  It's not a super high-profile list, with the exception of the well-known Barnes.  In fact, Kelman's Pigeon English and Miller's Snowdrops are debut novels.  Do awards and nominations influence your reading?  I don't mind telling you that the only reason I read Pigeon English was because it was longlisted.  I definitely take note of the Booker and the Pulitzer prizes.  The National Book Award and Nobel Prize, not so much.

Well, get cracking if you want to take part in the fun – the winner will be announced on October 18th!

Tortured English is more like it!

Pigeon English
by Stephen Kelman

While I can’t say that Stephen Kelman’s novel Pigeon English was a whole lot of fun to read, I don’t regret having made the effort. Elements of the novel can be challenging and/or tedious, but by the time you reach the end it packs a powerful punch.

The novel opens with a body on the ground, a murdered child, never identified beyond “dead boy.” It is being gazed upon by 11-year-old Harrison Opuku, our first-person narrator and torturer of the English language. Harri is a recent emigrant from Ghana. He’s come to the London with his mother and older sister, while his father saves money back home to bring over the rest of the family. And Harri seems to be adapting well. He’s made friends and, for better or worse, is adapting to the prevailing culture.

Harri and his best friend, Dean, decide they’re going to investigate dead boy’s murder. Dean’s seen many episodes of CSI, so he knows how it’s done. This “investigation” is a loose thread throughout the novel, which takes place over the course of several months. But mostly Pigeon English is the Harri show. And Harri is as sweet and endearing a character as I’ve read in quite some time. He’s smack in the middle of the London projects, stabbings and AIDS and junkies are a part of his daily reality, and yet, somehow, he is an innocent. And he is in peril. The seduction of the street gangs is just one of the many threats the adult reader sees looming over the young man. And it’s painful to read. Still, there is a lot of humor salted throughout the novel.

Another narrative element is Harri’s affection for a pigeon that flies into their flat one day. Harri explains, “I just wanted something that’s alive that I can feed and teach tricks to.” A pet pigeon isn’t in the cards, but Harri keeps an eye on him. The pigeon, it seems, keeps an eye on Harri as well. Throughout the novel are brief interludes from the pigeon’s point of view as he watches over Harri. These are some of the most beautiful passages. Ironically, the pigeon’s English is flawless.

As sweet, imaginative, and funny as Harri is, reading an entire novel in his voice is a challenge. For starters, he has a very limited vocabulary. Despite his assertion that in “England there’s a hell of different words for everything,” he tends to use the same handful. Some are recognizably English—though I’ve never seen anyone so often “vexed” as he is. Other words are more open to interpretation. I think the frequent exclamation “Asweh” is “I swear.” An angry person is “red-eyes.” “Bo-styles” means cool. A long time is “donkey hours.” A tricky person is a “confusionist.” And most mysterious of all was the word “hutious,” used in so many different contexts that I’m left to conclude that it bears a grammatical resemblance to “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

Thankfully, this is a short novel, and the language can be dealt with. When I finally got to the end, I can’t honestly say that I didn’t see it coming. Still, it was a shock. Or perhaps the shock was just how much of an emotional wallop it packed. And ultimately, that’s why I rate this novel a success—because by the end, I cared deeply about this child.

Mailbox Monday: Dead tree edition

If you guys even suspected how much time I spend looking at photographs of mailboxes, you'd be rightly appalled.  Still, the photo above is a striking, huh?  It was shot in Santa Fe, NM by a guy named Randy.  Technically, I don't think that tree is dead, but I was being clever.  The Mailbox Monday photos have been pretty stunning lately, but next Monday I'll have a fun theme post.  Come back, you'll like it.

So, remember my tantrum last week about the weather?  It went downhill from there.  Today is cold, damp, foggy, cloudy and in the 50's.  I'm freezing and don't know what to wear.  UGH!  Jimbo and/or Nicole, I'm coming to visit very soon.  What are you doing this weekend?

Also, I forgot something very bookish from last week--after having attended the very first preview of the stage musical of Armisted Maupin's Tales of the City, Jon and I and our friend Mike attended the closing night performance ten weeks later, last Sunday.  What a difference!  Everything had pulled together so terrifically during the course of the run!  And, Armisted and Christopher were there, of course, so I got to say hello to them.  They're always lovely.  I swear, I will blog about the show some day.  Last night, Jon and I caught the Turtle Island String Quartet at Yoshi's.  Not bookish, but very entertaining!

This week I'm looking forward to seeing my friend David Liss come through San Francisco on tour for his new novel, The Twelfth Enchantment, which goes on sale tomorrow.  I haven't read it yet, so no review, I'm afraid.  But once I've purchased a copy, I'll try to get to it fast.  I've been looking forward to this one for a while!  And I had the pleasure of chatting with David about the novel while we were both in New York last month.  I'll be posting that interview tomorrow.  For local readers, David will be at Book Passage on Wednesday, August 10th and M is for Mystery on Thursday, August 11th.  I haven't decided which to attend.  Anyone want to come with? 

Did you see the video I posted of Chris Moore and Ian Corson last week?  Chris posted a link on Facebook and suddenly hundreds and hundreds of people swung by the blog.  Thousands of page views.  Oh, so that's what it's like to have readers, LOL.  David Liss, please send your rabid fan base over here tomorrow.  I'll be waiting.

And, I don't want to get you guys too excited, but I'm posting a review of an AWESOME debut novel on Wednesday.  It's something completely different.  Should I tell you?  Okay I will.  It's Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

On a personal note, so many of you have kindly inquired about my sister.  She finally seems to be recovering from her surgery, and there will be no follow-up operations.  This is excellent news!  Thanks to all for your very kind concern.  And on that note...

The Leftovers
by Tom Perotta
Release date: August 30, 2011
Source: Paper galley, gift from Nicole

Talk about leftovers--this book is a leftover I forgot to include on last week's list.  It's one of the buzzier books of the fall, and I'm quite curious to read it.  I'm just not sure what I'm going to think of it.  We shall see.

Zone One
by Colson Whitehead
Release date: October 18, 2011
Source: Paper galley via Amazon Vine program

For a girl who "doesn't like zombies," this will be the fourth zombie novel I'll have read in the past year.  But I'm quite excited to read this one!  I love the current trend of major literary novelists taking on plot-driven genre literature.  This is another buzzy fall title--and it will be out just in time for Halloween.

The Accident
by Linwood Barclay
Release date: August 9, 2011
Source: Paper galley via Amazon Vine program

I've been wanting to read a Barclay novel for a while now.  This one seems to have had a "ripped from the headlines" inspiration.  From what I've read, the plot seems reminiscent of that tragic accident when a woman killed herself and several children in the car while drunk driving, but her husband and people in her life were unaware of a drinking problem.  Of course, in a thriller writer's hands, I'm sure there's more to the story than a domestic tragedy.

Pigeon English
by Stephen Kelman
Release date: July 19, 2011
Source: Electronic galley from publisher

So, did anyone notice that the Man Booker longlist was announced a couple of weeks ago?  So I thought I'd read a couple books off the longlist, starting with this one.  God, I hate written dialect.  Seriously, if you choose to read a novel called Pigeon English, you just have no room to complain.  Full review soon.

LA Mental
by Neil McMahon
Release date: September 27, 2011
Source: Electronic galley from publisher

James Rollins sez: “As much a mind game as it is thriller, a scientific puzzle buried in a murder mystery, all set against the surreal world of Hollywood filmmaking. . . . I can’t wait for the next book!”  Well, that's enough for me!  (No it isn't.  But I got the straight dope from that well known blurb 'ho Rollins, and he said read it.)

Showstopper
by Abigail Pogrebin
Release date: May 31, 2011
Source:  Kindle purchase

This isn't a book, it's what's called a "Kindle Single."  It's basically a really long magazine article and it generally costs about $2.  This was an example of Amazon doing brilliant targeting on me.  Once I saw the cover, I couldn't resist.  Today, Abigail Pogrebin is a respected journalist, but 30 years ago when she was 16, she was one of the teenagers in the original Broadway cast of the much maligned Sondheim flop Merrily We Roll Along, which closed after 16 performances.  This is not only her recollections of the show, but how the experience effected her, and much more.  Very interesting!


Books finished this past week:

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
LA Mental by Neil McMahon


Currently Reading:

As yet undecided...


So, what have you guys been reading?  What books have you acquired this week?  I'd love to hear in the comments!