After all the build up, an exciting evening was had at the Walter Scott Prize event. Having read all the shortlist candidates save one, determining Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End the rightful winner, he did, indeed, come away with the award. http:// It was an unseasonably warm day last Saturday. Temperatures were in the 20s… Read More Walter Scott Prize goes to…. and a John Cleese event
As time draws to a close before the prize winner is announced tomorrow in Melrose, Scotland, it’s time to opine on the last two novels from the shortlist which I’d planned to read and talk about. Namely: A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker and Francis Spufford’s Golden Hill. … Read More Walter Scott Prize Shortlist: Jo Baker & Francis Spufford, plus a recap
So much for leaving Hannah Kent’s book for last, as I’d planned. Picking it up for a short peruse, I found it such an easy read I finished in a couple protracted reading sessions. The Good People is set in County Kerry, Ireland in 1825. Beginning with the sudden, unexpected death of Martin Leahy… Read More Walter Scott Prize shortlist: Hannah Kent’s ‘The Good People’
I’ve been trotting around Scotland over the past few days, traveling to the Isle of Arran and riding through the western coast of the mainland. Though I took along a book, I didn’t have much time for reading. There’s just been too much to see, like this: And this: Also, lots… Read More Walter Scott Prize Shortlist: Rose Tremain’s ‘The Gustav Sonata’
My distraction throughout the reading of Barry’s book is no reflection on it, nor its quality. The same happened when I read Graham Swift’s Walter Scott-nominated Mothering Sunday, though in reading back through a second time I was moved by its beauty. The inability to fully fall into Days Without End is about my current life… Read More Walter Scott Prize Shortlist: Sebastian Barry’s ‘Days Without End’
This year’s Shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize consists of seven novels: four by female authors, and three by men. There’s Sebastian Barry, who’s Irish, Hannah Kent from Australia, and the rest are English. Interesting no Scots made the Shortlist – not that there must be. I am, as I said earlier, hoping to… Read More Walter Scott Prize 2017 Shortlist: Graham Swift’s ‘Mothering Sunday’
