Tag: If I Gave the Award

If I Gave the Award

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I recently posted my last review of the books on the shortlist for the 2010 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. So, as usual, it’s time for my feature, If I Gave the Award, when I tell you if I think the jury got it right.

Cover for Conspirata2010 was a strong year for historical fiction, and the shortlist reflects that. Of the seven books on that year’s list, I really enjoyed four of them, liked one other, and didn’t enjoy two others as much. Of the weakest entries, I felt that The Glass Room by Simon Mawer was cold and withdrawn, and I did not enjoy the subject matter of Hodd by Adam Thorpe, although it was effective at evoking the historical period. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds was interesting, but I still felt removed from the subject.

Cover for Wolf HallThe strongest entries, in my opinion, were Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant, Lustrum by Robert Harris (published as Conspirata in the U.S.), Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears, and the winner, Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel. Sacred Hearts, Lustrum, and Wolf Hall were best at evoking a sense of period and place, while Stone’s Fall had a great mystery.

If you follow my blog closely, however, you can probably guess which one I will pick. Wolf Hall was on my Best Books list for the year 2012. It is, in fact, one of my favorite books ever. So, I agree with the jury this time.

If I Gave the Award

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Cover for How to Be BothSince I’ve just posted my last review of books on the shortlist for the 2014 Booker Prize, it’s time for my feature, If I Gave the Award. In my opinion, many of the books on the 2014 shortlist are overrated. The winner, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, is sidetracked by a deeply uninteresting illicit love affair, while J by Howard Jacobson is overwhelmed by its obfuscation and sly jokiness and a deeply uninteresting licit love affair. Neel Mukherjee’s The Lives of Others is more powerful than either one of those novels.

Cover for We Are Completely Beside OurselvesHowever, my preference goes to one of the other two novels. How to Be Both by Ali Smith is more inventive than the other novels in its structure and more subtle in its message. But for its ability to keep me glued to the page, I have to say that over all the others, I preferred We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler.

If I Gave the Award

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Cover for On Canaan's SideHaving reviewed the last book on the Walter Scott Prize shortlist for 2012, it is time for me to give my opinion on whether the judges got it right. Of all the books in the shortlist, would I have picked On Canaan’s Side to be the winner?

For me, this is a much more clear-cut decision than for my last feature, where I compared the books on the shortlist for 2014. For that list, I felt that all the books were excellent, but I chose Life After Life for its combination of inventiveness and sense of history, acknowledging that the winner, An Officer and a Spy, was an excellent historical novel.

Cover for PureFor 2012, however, I can honestly say that I didn’t enjoy most of the books on the shortlist, or I enjoyed them only mildly. The one book that I enjoyed wholeheartedly was that year’s winner, On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry, about an Irish woman emigrating to the United States during the Troubles. I also thought that Pure was very interesting and showed a strong sense of the period. The books I enjoyed least were The Stranger’s Child and The Sisters Brothers.

So, for 2012, I agree with the judges. If I had picked the winner from this group, it would be On Canaan’s Side.

If I Gave the Award

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Cover for An Officer and a SpyI’m continuing my tradition of commenting on the award projects I have taken on by giving my opinion about whether the judges got it right. Yesterday, with An Officer and a Spy, I finished reviewing the short listed books for the 2014 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. An Officer and a Spy was the winner for that year.

I have to say that there were some excellent historical novels on the list for that year. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson was my best book for one year, and since I read it during a different year, The Luminaries was my best book for another year. I also loved Fair Helen. In fact, I enjoyed all of the nominees for 2014. Of the three named above, Life After Life and The Luminaries are most inventive in structure.

Cover for Life After LifeSo, for this article, I was forced to consider the idea of giving a historical fiction prize. I think that the prize must partly depend upon how successfully the novel depicts the feel of the period or the historical events being described. Here, The Luminaries is not as strong as some of the others in its sense of time and place. An Officer and a Spy may not be as inventive in structure, but it tells a strong historical story. So, too, though, does Life After Life. So, because it combines an inventive structure with a strong historical background, I pick Life After Life, with the caveat that all of the nominees for this year were good ones.

If I Gave the Award

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As I am reading the shortlists for a couple different awards, I thought it would be fun, as I finished a shortlist, to post my opinion of whether the jury picked the best book from that list. Of course, no one may care, but in some cases, I have felt that the best book on the shortlist was not the one chosen for the award.

Yesterday, I posted my last review of the books on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize of 2013. My reviews of these books have appeared sporadically starting in 2014 until now. Here is the shortlist for 2013:

The Luminaries was the winner for 2013.

This may be an anticlimactic beginning to my little series, but in this case, I think the jury got it right. I put The Luminaries on my list of the best books I read in 2014. It is cleverly constructed and original in approach, but that does not make it any less compelling as a story. Sometimes I think that critics get so jaded that they go for anything original, even if it is not that enthralling to read. This book is great, because it combines a fresh approach with an intricate puzzle of a tale. If you are interested, you can read my original reviews at the links above.