The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook (US) (our thread)
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe) (our thread)
Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi (US) (our thread)
Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze (UK) (our thread)
The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel (UK) (our thread)
Apeirogon by Colum McCann (Ireland-US) (our thread)
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste (Ethiopia-US) (our thread)
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (US) (our thread)
Real Life by Brandon Taylor (US) (our thread)
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler (US) (our thread)
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Scotland-US) (our thread)
Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward (UK) (our thread)
How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang (US) (our thread)

Please remember the Booker Folder Rules. If you have not read them, please do so here.

Please see the 2020 Booker Longlist Dynamic Rankings to have a say in the collective opinion of the group!

Well I guess I did call 5 in my list - The Shadow King, How Much of These Hills is Gold, Shuggie Bain, TMATL and Apeirogon. The only other one I have read is Such a Fun Age. So I guess that's 6 (really 5.5 as part way through Shadow King) out of 15.

To summarise above - 9 US based authors (one Irish, one Scottish, one Ethiopian), 3 in UK and 1 Zimbabwe. No one from Canada or ANZ.

Interesting, surprised by absence of Hamnet. Good to see How Much of These Hills is Gold, reading it now and nearly finished. Strong and beautifully written. Actually I picked up The Shadow King from the library yesterday afternoon. Shuggie Bain I'm looking forward to reading.

So despite all those Irish hopes we only get the American-based one. Apeirogon and TMATL fully deserve their places - I look forward to finding out more about the rest.

Current release dates - will be tricky to read the longlist pre shortlist unless these are changed

Burnt Sugar - 30 July (so this week)
Shuggie Bain - 6 August
Real Life - 27 August
Who They Was - 3 September
The New Wilderness - 3 September

I'll withhold judgment since I haven't read a single one, but my initial thought is man the Booker is really digging American fiction. My disapproval of expanding the pool to include U.S. writers a few years ago do not need to be repeated here.

I'm also sad Hamlet didn't make it, and surprised. My initial reaction in the Women's Prize thread was mixed, but I've come around on that book. It's one of my favorites.

Still, as I said above, I haven't read a single one of these, or even looked into most of them, so I'm heartened that I'll have some homework to do.

'Tis a rather US heavy list. Despite having read some of these, I've forgotten more than I should have. I just looked to see if I've shelved the ones I've read yet, and I'd been avoiding my still-not-finished library. Now I remember why -- boxes boxes everywhere!

My first reaction is surprise

However 3 of the books I read this year and immediately thought "this should win the Booker" (I would maybe add "Hamnet" and "That Reminds Me" although I think they may better suit Women's Prize and Goldsmith) - Apeirogon, Shuggie Bain, The Mirror and The Light are on there.

And lots of other stuff to discover.

Does anyone know if this is the most women authors to appear on a Booker longlist? The New York Times says that nine are women.

Vanishing Half misses, interesting.

Apparently more than half are debut authors (per Gaby Wood) - I have not checked this

My first thoughts: this is definitely a US heavy list and I’m sad to see Hamnet excluded. I’ve only read 3 (The Mirror and the Light, Apeirogon and Such a Fun Age). A few were already on my to-be-read list but most not. I look forward to hopefully discovering some new favourites!

For interest on publishers:

Penguin Random House - 2
Hachette - 3
Harper Collins - 2
Bloomsbury - 2
Faber Alliance - 4 (Faber, Canongate, Oneworld, Daunt Books)

(*) that's a real low - they run 4-7 and an average of 5 for the last 7 years

We also had the discussion about featuring 3/4th books in a series. Two made the cut - Mantel and This Mournable Body which is also the third in a series.

No David Mitchell or Ali Smith. You guys just got me interested in Ali Smith. I realized I’ve had Autumn on my shelf for 3 years and am now half done. I love it!! I guess the remaining 3 will wait for awhile. This list looks so interesting. Looking forward to investigating it.

Trevor wrote: "Does anyone know if this is the most women authors to appear on a Booker longlist? The New York Times says that nine are women."

I looked at the list on various sites and was surprised how many of them seem to be marketed as women's fiction as distinct from fiction by women.

Its interesting that (unless I missed something) nothing was announced on Twitter - I guess due to the 48 hour Twitter boycott currently underway.

MisterHobgoblin wrote: "I looked at the list on various sites and was surprised how many of them seem to be marketed as women's fiction as distinct from fiction by women."

That's just how it goes for women who write books in large part.

It occurs to me that I feel like several of these titles lately:
Tsitsi Dangarembga's This Mournable Body & Baltimore's own Anne Tyler: Redhead by the side of the road.

I haven't read much in the past few months, but looking forward to taking on this list.

I'm halfway through Hamnet and also disappointed that it didn't make the list.

Gumble's Yard wrote: "Its interesting that (unless I missed something) nothing was announced on Twitter - I guess due to the 48 hour Twitter boycott currently underway."

Yes (and was on Facebook) I was hoping they would honour that and it seems they have.

Ah - I stand corrected. If you want to delete your post I will alter mine.

Deleted - I do like Daunt though and they have previously had a RoC book (and I have high hopes for Winter in Sokcho for the 2021 prize)

Now if you delete your post asking me to delete my post I will delete this one!

You also need an asterix by PRH in your post

I've only read 2. Apeirogon and Shuggie Bain. Surprised that Shuggie Bain is there...it's ok but not great. Apeirogon is one of my favourite reads so far this year.

I know that many of you are Booker aficionados and don't want to spoil the party. But, since I already participated a bit in speculation, just to say that it is indeed surprising that it's mostly US based, only one is an indy press, and 5 out of 13 are yet to be published. The last is most surprising because, based on many reviews, this was a strong year. I'll bow out from the discussion since it's unlikely I'll read any of these books (with the exception of Apeirogon and perhaps one more) with a prediction: Mantel wins. Hugely disappointed that Ali Smith didn't make it though. Now I'll be looking forward to the Goldsmith Prize shortlist. :-)

Don't bow out just b/c you haven't read the books, Vesna - I base most of my thoughts on the covers ;-)

Disappointed not to see Hamnet, The Bass Rock, and Utopia Avenue but a lot of these were on my radar to read so glad for the push. A few unknown to me that I’m looking forward to especially Love and Other Thought Experiments and The New Wilderness.

Initially - really surprised! Disappointed that a few I thought would make it, haven't. Lots of reading ahead which is nice. There are quite a few authors I have not heard of. Finding those signed firsts is not going to be easy this year! Looking forward to reading as many as possible and discussing on the various threads.

Off to bed...

Jo wrote: "Initially - really surprised! Disappointed that a few I thought would make it, haven't. Lots of reading ahead which is nice. There are quite a few authors I have not heard of. Finding those signed ..."

I've two of these signed, per my collecting parameters, and I honestly didn't think they would be more than "books I want", so this is kind of nice.

I am not particularly seeing the Lee Child influence. Which is pleasing in a way as it suggests he didn't try to shoehorn choices in (c.f. the year of Snap and the graphic novel) just surprises me.

My typical comment. Page count. According to Amazon, which is often wrong, total page count for the longlist is 4,763. For those of us not reading Mantel, the total is 3,999.

This list reminds of the recent lists for U.S. prizes with a few big names or popular books and lots of lesser known or unknowns. I'm not a fan of such lists, but it usually makes the winners stand out.

I read the two big ones.

I'm glad Anne Tyler is there, or I probably wouldn't have read her new one..

I am also reading
This Mournable Body
Shadow King
Shuggie Bain
Real Life
How Much of these Hills is Gold

I probably won't get to the others unless they shortlist or get great reviews here.

I do intend to keep reading many books that were discussed here as possibles, since I have most of them and planned on reading them anyway.

No Ali Smith leaves me disappointed but see you all in the Ali Smith topic when Summer releases.

Is there an Ali Smith topic?

Quick reactions: Lots of surprises! I only had five titles overlap between my speculation and the actual list (same ones as GY). I've read Mirror/Light and Hills/Gold already and I'm 1/3 through Shuggie Bain.

Need to decide if I have the wherewithal to read the first two books in the trilogy leading up to This Mournable Body. Has anyone read them already? Is it needed to appreciate the third one?

I totally understand the frustration with how U.S. heavy the list is. But selfishly it's nice how few I have to worry about tracking down or ordering as imports. Also, I will say that I feel the prize has gained a lot of interest here since they made the change...

Yay, very excited, happy reading everyone!

Ella wrote: "MisterHobgoblin wrote: "I looked at the list on various sites and was surprised how many of them seem to be marketed as women's fiction as distinct from fiction by women."

That's just how it goes ..."

Ella made me smile

I don’t think the trilogy needs one to have read parts 1 and 2 from what I see of reviews. Seems a loose trilogy.

Indeed some reviews seem to have missed the 2nd part even exists (the first got some strong publicity a few years back as it featured on the BBCs 100 Books That Shaped Our World).

Ella wrote: "Don't bow out just b/c you haven't read the books, Vesna - I base most of my thoughts on the covers ;-)"

LOL. Thanks for a good chuckle, Ella. :-)

Lascosas wrote: "My typical comment. Page count. According to Amazon, which is often wrong, total page count for the longlist is 4,763. For those of us not reading Mantel, the total is 3,999."

:)

How does it compare to other years?

I need to look at Such a Fun Age again I guess. It struck me as very bland writing.

I checked the list for “predictability” against Doug’s listopia of eligible books

As a reminder

- In the 2017 the longlist featured: 8 of the top 10, 11 of the top 20, only the two "unknown" debuts - Elmet and History of Wolves were not in the top 20 and even History of Wolves was 26th).
- By contrast the 2018 left field longlist featured: 3 of the top 20, 7 of the top 40 I think, and a whole host of books not even in the listed 16
- 2019 was back to 2017. The longlist featured 8 of the top 20, 12 of the top 30, (only The Wall at 56 was not in the top 30)

This year

2 of the top 10 (Mantel and McCann), 3 of the top 20 (Zhang), 7 of top 50 (Stuart, Mengiste, Reid, Tyler) and 6 not listed in the 160 books (with Dangarembga In the top 80).

Surely part of that is that so many of these haven't been published yet. Also, there's been this "little bug going round"

Hello. I've been a lurker but a new longlist seems like a good time to jump in.

I'm surprised by the list but thrilled to see Real Life. I read it early in the year and still think about it. Probably because the list is US-heavy I'm missing the thrill of discovery I usually get from the list. But I'm interested in reading Burnt Sugar and Love and Other Thought Experiments.

Margie wrote: "Hello. I've been a lurker but a new longlist seems like a good time to jump in.

I'm surprised by the list but thrilled to see Real Life. I read it early in the year and still think about it. Proba..."

Welcome Margie! I'm glad you decided to de-lurk.

The longlist is an exciting time, even though I swore off trying to read it this year, I can't help but be excited, so I'm glad to see you here and hope you'll stick around!

Ella wrote: "Margie wrote: "Hello. I've been a lurker but a new longlist seems like a good time to jump in.

I'm surprised by the list but thrilled to see Real Life. I read it early in the year and still think ..."

Thanks, Ella!

I'm sad I missed out on some of the discussion pre-announcement (alas, I was working) but my response is similar to a lot of the group. It's quite a surprising list.

Perhaps the thing I find most surprising is how heavily weighted this list is towards American authors. This is both a blessing and a curse.

The blessing: 8 of the 13 titles are already available in Canada and 2 others have release dates in August and September - which means only 3 are entirely unavailable in Canada as of yet. This is fantastic compared to last year when the majority of titles had Canadian release dates set in October or beyond.

The curse: I love the Booker because it usually represents a wide spread of literature from across the globe. I'm afraid I already read too much "American Literature" and look to the Booker to balance my reading diet.

Glad to see a few new names popping up in the discussion! Welcome aboard!

I've only read 2 (The Mirror & The Light and Apeirogon and both were superb. I've now ordered the other 10. Had to order two from Waterstones UK, neither published yet. Who They Was is the only one I'm unlikely to have in time to read before short list announcement. While having a large number of US books made it easy to get them for a change, it would have have been nice to see more variety in country of origin. Like many, I am sorry that Hamnet did not make it, and I would very much have liked to see Jack on the list.

As an American, I'm fairly disappointed by how US-centric the list is. I read 1/13, too, which is my worst showing in some time. It's a lovely dilemma to have, tho.

Not what I expected. I’ve only heard of 7 of these, read 1, have one ordered.

We ugly Americans: we have to dominate everywhere we’re invited. Sorry.

I’m off to read up on all the titles I hadn’t heard of before this list.

My reaction, happy to see Mantel's TM&TL on the list. Disappointed Hamnet missed. Looking forward to reading as many of the others as I can get to and find. For example, checking out This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga encourages me to get to her two earlier novels that I haven't as yet read.

After finishing How Much of these Hills is Gold next for me is likely Shadow King then depends on order I can track them down and get my hands on them. Have a few on reserve at library and I'm high on the list but a good few of them are still 'on order'.

Ang-
By memory only, I would say the page total is less than usual. What is definitely different is that there is only one brick, the Mantel, and only one book under 200 pages, the Tyler.

General comment-
And I will now raise my pet peeve. As someone who for a very long time has divided the year between Mexico and the US I find it very jarring when people call the US "America." America is two continents, not one country.

Lascosas wrote: "Ang-
By memory only, I would say the page total is less than usual. What is definitely different is that there is only one brick, the Mantel, and only one book under 200 pages, the Tyler.

General ..."

Re your pet peeve. In Trivial Pursuit if there's a US-centric question, you HAVE to say The U.S. or United States - it's considered (and rightly so) incorrect to say America as an answer.