The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

These are the shortlisted books.
Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett
Assembly by Natasha Brown
A Shock by Keith Ridgway
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner
little scratch by Rebecca Watson

I’m eagerly awaiting the list!

Great to finally see Assembly coming back in one of the awards lists!

Is that really the list??? Wow!!!

I owe it 100% to this group that I've read three of these books (Assembly, This One Sky Day, and little scratch...which is 3x more than the national book award short list books I've read!

What a brilliant list.

Although which one is the obscure book? I’ve read 5

I read one - I own 4. The other two should be easy to get.

Looks like a great list

Best book prize shortlist ever? I’m struggling to think of a better one.

WooHoo! Finally Assembly is getting much deserved recognition! As well as Sterling Karat Gold!
I’ve read both and little scratch. I have Popisho aka This One Sky Day, which I need to finish, so I just need to get Checkout 19 and A Shock.

That looks like a great list.

Three down, three to go for me (to read: little scratch, This One Sky Day and A Shock).

If it's of any use to anyone, "This One Sky Day" is £1.19 on Kindle in UK at the moment.

I am absolutely thrilled with this shortlist!!! Hooray!!! What a joy!

5 of my top 11 picks.

I am so pleased they overlooked Assembly’s minor Goldsmiths connection (hope no one reads this thread!)

I have only read Assembly and Checkout 19, but want to put both at number 1...

Same here. Restart Popisho, then on to the other two. Even though it’s Oct and I like to read spooky books, but I can read short ghost stories as I go.

I’ve listed both Assembly and Sterling Karat Gold as 5* books so I can’t choose between the two. I loved Sterling Karat Gold, it’s brilliant and few could write like Waidner, but Assembly was so moving in so few words!

I have the same problem with Assembly and This One Sky Day.

I have yet to finish Popisho, the title of my copy, or read Claire-Louise Bennett who appears to be another 5 star book, so I might have the same dilemma. This might be a tough call this year.

Just ordered the 4 I haven't read from Blackwells, £43 in total which isn't bad, but I may have to wait a while for delivery.

Read 5.

Surprised at One Sky Day as a Goldsmith - it’s a great read though just a bit bonkers.

I could not get in the mood for Isabel’s latest and DNF twice but sure I will love it.

Feel like I have been championing Little Scratch and Assembly all year so absolutely pleased for both

Two of the Guardian First Novel preview also.

Great for CLB after her Stinging Fly debut was ruled ineligible due to being sold as a short story book - something I saw they recently tweeted that they subsequently regretted (especially as the US publisher sold it as a novel) but did as that’s his she submitted it to them and they are short story specialists.

If I was a Booker judge tonight I'd be feeling a bit embarrassed looking at that list. Why none of these were on that list and the 13 they picked were ... (I'll allow them that they picked Second Place)

Indeed looking at my pre-longlist Booker hopes, this shortlist was #1, 3, 4, 6 and 8 out of 49 books I've read (excluding A Shock).

I've read 3 and ordered the rest, since I am currently reading my last book needed to finish the National Book Award for translation shortlist. Will be hard to beat Assembly I think.

I know what you mean Paul and I kind of agree (these are many of my favourite books) but we are judging the Booker compared to what we want it to be rather than what it is and especially how this times judges interpreted it. Most readers I know outside this group would probably find all but One Sky Day close to unreadable.

Few of these books will I think sell widely and that is at the heart of the Booker as that excellent Guardian article said.

I am reminded of the best quote in the article where the head bookbuyer at WH Smith wrote to the Booker organisation after Kelman’s win to sarcastically report that WH Smith (main high street bookseller chain in those days) had tripled their sales after the winner announcement. “From 8 to 24”.

I think we can just more celebrate that the Goldsmith judges have done what the Goldsmith was set up to do - which has not been the case in many other years.

It's rare that I want to read every book on a shortlist, but that is the case here. I've already read two, had bought two more in anticipation of the announcement, and am now hastily ordering the others...

How was Lucy Ellmann? I did not watch as was at dinner with a friend but the title gave me bad vibes it might be an anti science diatribe (I recall some of her answers at the Goldsmith shortlist readings going down that line).

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I know what you mean Paul and I kind of agree (these are many of my favourite books) but we are judging the Booker compared to what we want it to be rather than what it is and especially how this t..."

Fair. Although I've been asked to do a book club at work to introduce a book to people and Assembly was my top choice. Rather like with Milkman I don't think people would find that unreadable at all. I think we can agree that one at least was a shocking omission.

I still wonder if Assembly was submitted for the Booker.

I guess it is possible the publisher's didn't. In which case they should be ashamed. Goldsmiths is great but in sales terms Goldsmiths winner < Booker longlist I suspect.

The lecture was mostly that anti science diatribe again, so you didn't miss much. Quite entertaining, but I couldn't agree with much of it.

I think I and we did a rather good job of predictions of books. But how about what really matters. Paul's overall predictions:

1. One book will surprinsingly miss out - it will then turn out the author once passed within 1 metre of the Goldsmiths University for two minutes and was pinged by the new Trackandtraceineligbleauthors app

XXX Assembly could have been DQd and wasn't. [NB I think I have mentioned before but one author asked me to amend their bio on Goodreads, as it had them down as a Goldsmiths lecturer which was incorrect]

2. Gumble's Yard and/or Neil will have read at least one of the books in ARC, but failed to mention it as a contender, largely as it didn't seem that innovative

Well GY has admitted he might have done that for This One Sky Day but he didn't and it wasn't an ARC. Instead and Neil both championed Assembly and GY little scratch. So a pleasing XXX.

3. There will be overlap with the Booker list, although not always the obvious book

Another XXX. Which tells you a lot (not good things) about this year's Booker.

4. The list will (unfortunately) lack ethnic diversity with more white Irish than BAME authors

Another pleasing XXX. One author who lives/has lived (not sure) in Ireland but two BAME authors.

5. Several of the authors featured will be past shorlistees or past or future judges (hard to verify the last until some time passes but nailed on to happen)

Small tick. One former shortlistee - but then Isabel was bound to appear on a list of most innovative/best books of 2021 so that was an easy one. And Cusk missed out.

6. We will debate whether one book is truly original when it is clearly in the style of another innovative book, possibly by the same author

X? Perhaps one could say that of Sterling Karat Gold, except their novels are so different to anyone else they can't really not be called original.

7. The winner will likely not be the best book

X? Well from the 5 I've read all of them are the best book. So unless A Shock is not brilliant (but I've seen some rave reviews) and wins this one is wrong.

So basically a complete fail!

I spoke to a Costa judge this week (who also has a Booker involvement albeit not an inside track) and she seemed almost surprised I was surprised at its omission from the Booker as she thought it was too short

Did not think that boded well for the Costa

Hugh wrote: "The lecture was mostly that anti science diatribe again, so you didn't miss much. Quite entertaining, but I couldn't agree with much of it."

In a year when brilliant scientists have done what 2 years ago would have been seen as almost impossible and saved millions of lives, and anti-science cranks have tried to do the opposite - that's frankly poorly timed.

Well I think on Assembly a lot if people do seem to find it unreadable oddly as many did with Milkman (which of course cleaved this group in two)

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I spoke to a Costa judge this week (who also has a Booker involvement albeit not an inside track) and she seemed almost surprised I was surprised at its omission from the Booker as she thought it w..."

As I said when you told me that anecdote, anyone who thinks a book is too short should be disqualified from judging a book prize!

Sorry if this was already announced but I just tweeted the prize to ask if there will be a shortlist reading and they said yes with details to follow in two days.

Looks for my copies of This One Sky Day and Sterling Karat Gold for the book signing. They appear to have been borrowed from the library.

If I had a criticism at all it feels a little London centric.

I know they are not meant to include Goldsmith alumni (and they thankfully overlooked the partial link for Natasha Brown) but I think I am right in saying there are three people from another London University Literature/creative writing course - one graduate and two lecturers from Roehampton.

Of the books I think no fewer than four are set in London?

Of the others one set in a bizarre imaginary place and one in Popisho (that is a joke for Neil)

London centric is good though isn't it? After all London has done to support the RUK for the last several decades, it now needs a lot of reciprocity post pandemic, particularly to support beleaguered buy-to-let landlords.

Or isn't that a universal view?

True story: My next door neighbour's car was driven away by thieves in broad daylight today (one of those electric key system hacking jobs). The police managed to stop the car and arrest the thieves - just outside of Roehampton University.

Goldsmiths connection do you think? Exuberant literary joyriders?

Or Roehampton lecturers as I understand them to be the impoverished underclass?

Paul wrote: "True story: My next door neighbour's car was driven away by thieves in broad daylight today (one of those electric key system hacking jobs). The police managed to stop the car and arrest the thieve..."

The car was undamaged except for a little scratch...

🤦🏼‍♂️

Excellent

Well done, Debra.

I’m so disappointed Ms Ellmann is anti-science. It baffles me that any educated and/or intelligent person could be anti-science. Even if it was a pro-arts stance or one of her trademark sardonic essays, Paul is right, this is not the time to be piling on the very beleaguered people who are working so hard to keep us all in good health.

Never liked Lucy Ellmann and after yesterday‘s lecture (only heard snippets) I do even less so. Such a dangerous attitude of a privileged populist who just has to bash everything (as if it really would touch her life in any form).

Anyhow, what a shortlist!!
So pleased with the NBA and Goldsmith lists to give me some good reads (something the Booker hasn‘t managed this year (besides the Cusk)).

And I guess I have to give Mrs Waidner another try. An author I want to like but cannot follow.

Oh dear I had a feeling she would do this.

Is Bennett, Ridgway, Waidner or Watson special in terms of page layout? I’m considering reading some of them on Kindle and don’t want to choose the ones that would require the physical layout for full effect (like last year’s Dopamine City, for example).

Watson is yes - very much so. It’s possible the Kindle works but I would think the print much better as position of text on page is integral to the reading experience.

The gist of Ellmann's argument is that everything good about humanity is created by the arts and everything bad by science, and that the two have to be at war. Never mind how these artists are fed, what gives them time to work on their art, how their work is communicated, or what stops them dying young. Being anti-humanity seems a stronger intellectual position to me. And yet I still loved Ducks Newburyport...

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "If I had a criticism at all it feels a little London centric.

I know they are not meant to include Goldsmith alumni (and they thankfully overlooked the partial link for Natasha Brown) but I think..."

Thank you for the joke, GY. I am looking forward to discussing the delights of Wiltshire with you all when you read Checkout 19.

I'm glad I decided not to listen to Ellmann: it sounds like she would have just made me very cross. I'd like to put her and Richard Powers in a room together and see what happens.

For all we (particularly me) point out the Booker is increasingly dominated by Faber and PRH (9 out of 13 this year) - this year's Goldsmith is I think two Faber, two PRH (4 out of 6) plus one PanMacmillan and only 1 small publisher.