After reading these short descriptions of the novels on the 2009 Booker prize shortlist, the winner (Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel) strikes me as the book on the list I'd be least likely to want to read. (Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, anyone?)
Maybe it's one of those kind of books that is amazing even though you think 'I'd never like this' or 'not my type'.
Purely from the descriptions, I'd go for The Children's Book by AS Byatt first, and then maybe reach for The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds.
The others on the shortlist, Summertime by JM Coetzee, The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters don't especially appeal, but then a two-or-three-sentence description can hardly do them justice.
I'll have to wait and see which ones I can get at the library and then decide.
I realise that A TON of other book bloggers are WAY ahead of me on this and have read the entire (or most of the) shortlist... and now that I've read a review of some of these, I think The Little Stranger sounds pretty good.
ReplyDeleteThe review of Summertime on Shelf Love (shelflove.wordpress.com) actually made me want to read it too.