Reading All the Bookers!

Booker Prize :  Winner International Booker  2020  Plot Time and Place :  Present day Netherlands Opening sentence :    "I was ten and stopped taking off my coat." Plot summary :  It is narrated by ten-year-old Jas, a girl who lives with her religious family on a dairy farm in the Netherlands. Jas is grieving the death of her brother, who died in an accident. His death drives further instability in the family and deteriorates Jas' mental health.  Review :  It´s strange to say you liked a book when it is so full of disturbing scenes and imagery. But I liked it. The writing is beautiful, the descriptions very imaginative, and it was interesting to see how different people deal with grief, and the dynamic between siblings. The author is also very good at writing in the first person as a child, it really feels like a child's voice and thoughts. Rating :  4/5

Booker Prize :  Winner 2022 Plot Time and Place :  Present day Sri Lanka  Opening sentence :    "You wake up with the answer to the question everyone's asking". Plot summary :  The story opens with the main protagonist, Maali Almeida, dead, in an afterlife that resembles a bureaucratic social service. He doesn't know who murdered him, and he sets out on a journey over the next seven moons to find his killer, and his lost photographs. Review :   At first I thought this is not really my "kind" of book, as I'm not very much into humorous stories or magical realism, but then I got hooked on the story. It's funny and tragic and sad at the same time.  And I learned a lot that I didn't know about Sri Lanka's recent history.  Rating :  4/5

  Booker Prize :  Shortlisted 2009 Plot Time and Place :  1940s, Warwickshire, England Opening sentence :    "I first saw Hundreds Hall when I was ten years old". Plot summary :  A country doctor, Dr. Faraday, makes friends with an old gentry family of declining fortunes, who own a very old estate that is crumbling around them. Perplexing events unfold, which may or may not be of supernatural origin, culminating in tragedy. Review :  This is a ghost story, a love story, a critique of the English class system, and a mystery, with a great atmosphere and a great final twist.  Rating :   5/5

Booker Prize : Winner 1997 Plot Time and Place :  Kerala, India, in the 1960s. Opening sentence :    "The days are long and humid." Plot summary :  Set in Kerala in the 1960s, the novel paints a vivid picture of life in a rural Indian town, the thoughts and feelings of two small children, and the complexity and hypocrisy of the adults in their world. It is also a poignant lesson in the destructive power of the caste system and moral and political bigotry in general. Review :  This book gave me mixed feelings. The story is sad and depressing, it leaves no room for hope. Sometimes it drags on for too long (though I didn't find it boring).  On the other hand, this author writes beautifully, crafting the sentences in an almost poetic way, and her sentences have a particular rhythm. (They "sound" nice in your head). I also enjoyed the social criticism and the tragic love story.  Rating :   3 and 1/2

  Booker Prize : Shortlisted 2003 Plot Time and Place :  Present day England Opening sentence :   "The other night, at dinner, Sheba talked about the first time that she and the Connolly boy kissed." Plot summary :  The narrator, Barbara Covett, is telling us this story with a clear aim in mind: she is in the middle of a national scandal and, without confiding her plans to the woman on whose actions this scandal has turned, plans to publish this account for the public eye later.  Barbara is a History teacher. She is a lonely old woman and very judgemental.  Her co-worker, Sheba, is a 40-something-year-old Pottery teacher who is having an affair with a 16-year-old male student.   Review :   Very good psychological portrait of the inner life and motivations of a lonely and unhappy person. In the end you don't know if you hate the villain or feel sorry for her.  Rating :   4/5

  Booker Prize:  Winner 2008 Plot Time and Place :  Present day India Opening sentence:    "Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English." Plot summary:  The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India's class struggle in a globalized world, as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy. Review:   This one grew on me. At first, I wondered why such an apparently light, funny read had won the Booker. But as I went on reading, I really liked the social critique embedded in the story. It's easy to have moral scruples when you've never been hungry... Lots of food for thought and very funny at the same time. A nice surprise.  Rating:   3/5