Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018: It’s Early Yet

09-03-1810-03-18 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

Welcome to the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist, formerly Baileys Prize, formerly Orange Prize. Quite the crop this year, including six debut novels.

Six!

I’ve had the Longlist date on my calendar for weeks. I just got very busy and had no time to post before now.

I’ve read a grand total of one of the longlisted books, Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Unlike the rest of the world, I’m not a huge fan. I own three others: Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan, Fiona Mozley’s Elmet and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing. Had I the money, I’d buy them all. Not because I believe they’re all great, but to support this prize and female writers in general. I’d also like to stack and re-stack them, take photos of and with them, and gloat.

Mostly, gloat.

Eight authors are Brits, four American, one Australian, one Pakistani/British and two Indian. Diversity? Meh. Not so much.

I’ve checked Amazon re: availability. It’s astonishingly good, though not all can be had via my beloved Prime. Only one – Imogen Gowar’s The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock – is unavailable in the States. It’s on pre-order, expected to be published September 11.

That does me no damn good, does it.

Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018 Longlisted Authors

(first novels highlighted in red)

Nicola Barker, British, H(A)PPY, her 12th novel (William Heinemann)
Elif Batuman, American, The Idiot, her first novel (Jonathan Cape)
Joanna Cannon, British, Three Things About Elsie, her second novel (The Borough Press)
Charmaine Craig, American, Miss Burma, her second novel (Grove Press)
Jennifer Egan, American, Manhattan Beach, fifth novel (Corair)
Imogen Hermes Gowar, British, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, her first novel (Harvill Secker)
Jessie Greengrass, British, Sight, her first novel (John Murray)
Gail Honeyman, British, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, her first novel (HarperCollins)
Meena Kandasamy, Indian, When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife, her second novel (Atlantic Books)
Fiona Mozley, British, Elmet, her first novel (JM Originals)
Arundhati Roy, Indian, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, her second novel (Hamish Hamilton)
Sarah Schmidt, Australian, See What I Have Done, her first novel (Tinder Press)
Rachel Seiffert, British, A Boy in Winter, her fourth novel (Virago)
Kamila Shamsie, Pakistani/British, Home Fire, her seventh novel (Bloomsbury Circus)
Kit de Waal, British, The Trick to Time, her second novel (Viking)
Jesmyn Ward, American Sing, Unburied, Sing, third novel, (Boomsbury Circus)

Repeated from my Man Booker rants of the past, being a novice should grant a writer no special privilege. Any judging panel worried about offending the masses is going to pepper a longlist with several Redshirts (Star Trek reference), and what better way than neophyte authors. Some are there from merit, others as place fillers. I’ve already sniffed out a place filler or two, but I’ll keep my own counsel for now.

Conversely, past reputation should bring no assurance, either. Even the big writers stumble. But – and this is a big but – experience will out. A writer who’s been honing her craft 20 years is going to be more sophisticated and nuanced than a newbie. Again, unless she should stumble.

So. The 2018 list. I’ll yoink off Eleanor Oliphant first thing. Too popular, and the ending was a sell-out.

And then there were 15.

Longlisted books I’ll try to finish before the Shortlist is announced (April 23):

Jennifer Egan Manhattan Beach

Fiona Mozley Elmet

Jesmyn Ward Sing, Unburied, Sing

Second Tier Longlisted books I’ll finish if there’s still time before the Shortlist: *

Elif Batuman The Idiot

Sarah Schmidt See What I Have Done

* Books I’m buying because they sound like great reads, and to support the longlisted authors, not necessarily books I think will win the prize.

I won’t get serious about predictions until the Shortlist’s announced. I’m not familiar enough with lots of these writers. I’ll read more about them and their books, scan some reviews, and keep an ear to the ground.

As with the Man Bookers, I won’t let the fact I haven’t read all the books stop me from opining.

First up will be Elmet. I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things. Once I’ve cleared off Ruby, my second read of The Ballad of Peckham Rye and A Clockwork Orange, it’s right on to Fiona Mozley.

So much to do. Back asap.

A little book therapy goes a long way.

01-09-1721-01-18 / Lisa Guidarini / 3 Comments

I miss the good old days when I had me a rich husband to pay for my subscription to the Sunday New York Times. There’s nothing on earth like a thick slab of newsprint slamming onto your driveway once a week, leaving a rectangle-shaped imprint in the asphalt. Even once I peeled off the sections I didn’t give a crap about, there was still enough reading material to keep me busy more than half the week.

Spoiler: It’s the Book Review section I lusted for most.

The lousy bastards keep sending me tempting half-price offers, and good lord I yearn, but post-Scotland my coffers are a whole lot emptier thanks to something called no income. I’ve been cutting costs across the board. My home is furnished with mostly thrifted stuff – high quality thrift, mind, I have a reputation to uphold – and I don’t even have TV service. My cell phone plan’s the lowest available, as is my internet. No no no, don’t say “in that case, you have extra money sitting around…”

I was kind of thinking that, then I remembered something: there are libraries. Libraries subscribe to newspapers.

Libraries are free.

Well, paid for via property taxes, which I don’t pay directly since I’m renting. But, you know.

I was sorely disappointed with the last two weeks’ NYTimes Books section. Usually satisfying for this lusty wench, it just wasn’t doing it for me. But then, the attention span isn’t there, either.

SEE: disaster, recent.

If I’d read the entire Sunday paper, the slick adverts would have gotten my full attention. Lately, most days find me sitting here on the sofa, eyes wide from hours spent scrolling through Pinterest for hacks on rental-friendly, sexy fixes for all the ugly bits in my house, empty water bottles littering the faux wood (SEE: Fake) floor beside me.

I’m ridiculously focused on decor. When I’m not out relentlessly hunting for something to throw on my walls, I’m home staring at things other people have. It’s a sickness, but mostly a safe one. And it’s a whole lot cheaper than drugs. But dear god don’t bring up the subject around me or I’ll tell you how much I spent on every, single fecking square inch of my house.

Everything above the bookshelves, FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS!

I had better luck with the most recent Bookmarks Magazine. If you don’t know it, you need to look it up. While not comprehensive, it does a damn good job gathering newly published and soon-to-be released titles, gives brief blurbs, and assembles excerpts from some major review venues. They give a star rating – 1-5 – based on how positive the reviews are.

I likes it.

And I found me a few titles to beg for, I mean check out:

Time to go a-whoring.

It’s not a bad idea forcing myself to crawl to the library and read the Sunday New York Times. Gets me out of the house, and gives me a reason to get dressed and brush my hair. It has the added benefit of being where people are, sitting amidst others riffling through pages and drinking coffee. The sound of pages turning is soothing to me.

Hey, is there an app for that?

If I get restless, there’s always the decorating magazines. If I’ve had no luck soliciting publishers to get those books above, you know I hear libraries have those, too.

But I just may subscribe to Bookmarks. A girl needs something in her mailbox besides junk.

No, that’s not a euphemism.

Why you shouldn’t bet the farm on anything I say.

12-03-1105-12-15 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

In this post I made my squirrely predictions re: who would win NBCC awards, having read, well, basically none of them. The only winner I guessed correctly was in the Biography category, for Sarah Bakewell's bio of Montaigne. To be honest, that was a total shot in the dark, based on the fact I wanted to read the book. Strangely, that doesn't pull much weight with the NBCC. A bit rude, if you ask me.

Now that I know the winners, it's time to read them. Not all of them, but at least these: the winner for fiction – Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, the winner for autobiography – Half a Life by Darin Strauss, the winner for nonfiction – The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, and the winner for biography – How to Live: A Biography of Montaigne… by Sarah Bakewell (eBook, using my Kindle app).

I regret I couldn't read all the books on the shortlist, before the winners were announced. That's beyond my ability to fit into my life right now. When any major award's shortlist comes out I itch to read all the books. I did that, selectively, with the Bookers a couple years ago, and want to with the upcoming Orange Award nomination list that will be popping up very soon.

And why, you may ask, is Jodi Picoult's Sing You Home sitting behind the NBCC winners? Because she tweeted that reader reviews on Amazon have been mean-spirited, and asked that anyone who enjoyed the book post a review. I replied that I would, and she was grateful. I've started the book and will post when I finish. I won't give a positive review if I don't end up enjoying it, but I will review it fairly, without attacking the author, saying she's lost her talent, etc., as some already have. It's so pompous to declare a writer has lost his or her talent, such a sweeping statement to make about something no one can know. Rude, too.

Even the best authors occasionally publish a clunker. Look at Updike's Terrorist. Ugh. Total stinker. Would anyone dare say he'd lost his talent because one book stunk? Doubtful. So why should that be the case with Picoult?

I'm no expert on her novels. I read one – The Tenth Circle. And I enjoyed it. It had flaws, but it entertained. It was for review; I probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise. I don't recall anything about it now, such is the nature of so much general fiction. It's read for entertainment, not for staying power. But would I attack her for her style? Not at all. Fairness requires you examine the good and the bad, what measures up and what doesn't. I hope I'm able to help her a bit.

Today I'm going to get my reviewing house in order, prioritizing what I have ongoing and posting more about current books/reviews in process in what I hope will be tomorrow's Sunday Salon. Things are out of hand right now. I have so many books in the queue, way more than I put on the sidebar. Some are eGalleys, too, and I'm going to sync my iPhone to NetGalley this morning, so I don't have to lug around a computer to read these. That's a real pain.

Busy, busy. In a good way, but busy nonetheless.

Hope you're all having a lovely reading week. I know I am!