Reading All the Bookers!

  Booker Prize :   Longlisted for the International Booker 2026 Plot Time and Place :   Iran, 1953 Opening sentence : "The deep green garden, its walls plastered with mud and hay, faced the river, with the village behind it." Plot summary :   Five Iranian women escape the violence, confinement and patriarchal control of their respective societies and families, eventually converging to live together in a lush, communal garden. Review :  This is a short novella, but it really packs a punch. I enjoyed the magical realism, and obviously the feminist lens. Some parts, like one character growing roots and turning into a tree, reminded me of Han Kang's "The Vegetarian" (although "Vegetarian" was written much later). It is all a big metaphor for escaping the patriarchy, and how women suffer because of it. Rating :   4/5

  Booker Prize :   Shortlisted for the International Booker 2021 Plot Time and Place :   Distant future, aboard a spaceship Opening sentence :   "It's not hard to clean them." Plot summary :  The crew of the Six-Thousand Ship consists of humans and humanoids. When the ship takes on board a number of objects from a strange new planet, the crew find themselves becoming deeply attached to them. The book consists of a series of short testimonies from the spaceship's employees. Review :   This was very original, with beautiful, almost poetic, writing. The descriptions are very visual and sensory (the author writes a lot about what you can hear, smell, touch and taste). Interesting food for thought: what can be classified as human, what it means to be human, critique of a life governed by work, corporativism, capitalism. This book contains a number of different voices, and it's hard to distinguish which are human and which are humanoid, which makes unde...

  Booker Prize :    WINNER 1999 Plot Time and Place :   South Africa, late 1990's Opening sentence :   "For a man of his age, fifty-two, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well." Plot summary :  The story follows  David Lurie, a disgraced 52-year-old professor in post-apartheid Cape Town whose life collapses after an illicit affair with a student, leading him to confront profound personal and societal violence at his daughter's rural farm.  Review :   It's a sad story, in a bleak world, with depressed and depressing characters. I enjoyed the author's intelligent exploration of the following ideas:  South Africa's painful transition out of apartheid, historical guilt, racial tensions, remorse, guilt, shame, retribution, sex as power, sex as domination, the parallels between male violence against women and colonialism. However, the writing style didn't strike me as special, and I couldn't really relate to any of the...

  Booker Prize :    WINNER 2015 Plot Time and Place :   From 1976 to 1991, Kingston, Jamaica and New York City, USA. Opening sentence :     "Listen. But the dead never stop talking and sometimes the living hear." Plot summary : The novel spans several decades and explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1976 and its aftermath, through the crack wars in New York City in the 1980's, and a changed Jamaica in the 1990's. Review :   At first it was a slow burner. It seemed too long, and it was hard to keep track of who was speaking, with all the different narrators, times and places. Then it kind of grows on you and it is very realistic and hard, like something from Tarantino. No holds barred. Interesting to learn about the crooked politics, poverty in Jamaica, and the gang life.  Rating :  4/5

  Booker Prize :    WINNER 1998 Plot Time and Place :   90's, London, Lake District, Amsterdam Opening sentence :     "Two former lovers of Molly Lane stood waiting outside the crematorium chapel with their backs to the February chill." Plot summary :  Horrified by how their late friend Molly lost her mental independence before dying, Clive and Vernon make a suicide/ euthanasia pact. They vow that if either ever begins to lose their mental faculties, the other will arrange a legal mercy killing for them. Soon after, both men face crucial moral dilemmas that pit their professional ambitions against their ethics. Review :   I enjoyed the characters, the writer is really good at showing each character's inner lives and thoughts. The book is humorous and at the same time exploring some dark themes, like jealousy, moral dilemmas and revenge. Rating :  4/5

  Booker Prize :   Winner 1995 Plot Time and Place :   During World War I, in France, Britain and a remote island in Melanesia. Opening sentence :     "In deck-chairs all along the front the bald pink knees of Bradford businessmen nuzzled the sun." Plot summary :  Officer Billy Prior has recovered from shell shock and chooses to return to the Western Front in 1918. Army psychiatrist William Rivers remains in England treating severely traumatized men. He remembers his past anthropological fieldwork on Eddystone Island. Review :   I enjoyed the depiction of what it was like in the battlefield. The characters felt very real, like real people. However, I didn't really get what was the author's purpose in throwing the Eddystone Island part into the mix. I felt it didn't have anything to do with the rest of the story. Overall, a very human book against war. Rating :   3/5