MAN BOOKER PRIZE LONG LIST /BOOKMOVEMENT.COM



2017 MAN BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST IS ANNOUNCED

Let award season begin!  If you are looking for a list of the brightest stars in the 2017 firmament (or bookshelf), this is a pretty great one.   On July 17, the Man Booker Prize Longlist was announced, featuring 13 novels including THE MINSITRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS, LINCOLN IN THE BARDO and THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. Have you read any of these? If not, get started.. you won't be disappointed.

 SAVE THE DATE

  • The Shortlist will be announced Sept. 13th
  • Winner announced October 17th
The following book descriptions are from the Man Booker Prize Group.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS

BY ARUNDHATI ROY

In a city graveyard, a resident unrolls a threadbare Persian carpet between two graves. On a concrete sidewalk, a baby appears quite suddenly, a little after midnight, in a crib of litter. In a snowy valley, a father writes to his five-year-old daughter about the number of people who attended her funeral. And in the Jannat Guest House, two people who’ve known each other all their lives sleep with their arms wrapped around one another as though they have only just met.
Here is a cast of unforgettable characters caught up in the tide of history. Told with a whisper, with a shout, with tears and with laughter, it is a love story and a provocation. Its heroes, present and departed, human and animal, have been broken by the world we live in and then mended by love – and for this reason, they will never surrender.
$14.99 Amazon

Lincoln in the Bardo

 LINCOLN IN THE BARDO

BY GEORGE SAUNDERS

On 22 February 1862, two days after his death, Willie Lincoln is laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That very night, shattered by grief, his father Abraham arrives at the cemetery, alone, under cover of darkness.
Over the course of that evening, Abraham Lincoln paces the graveyard unsettled by the death of his beloved boy, and by the grim shadow of a war that feels as though it is without end. Meanwhile Willie is trapped in a state of limbo between the dead and the living – drawn to his father with whom he can no longer communicate, existing in a ghostly world populated by the recently passed and the long dead.
Unfolding in the graveyard over a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a thrilling exploration of death, grief and the deeper meaning and possibilities of life.
$13.99 Amazon

Swingtime by Zadie Smith

SWINGTIME

BY ZADIE SMITH

Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and true identity, how they shape us and how we can survive them. Moving from north-west London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time.
Two brown girls dream of being dancers – but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It’s a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early 20s, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either…
$13.99 Amazon

The Underground RailroadTHE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

BY COLSON WHITEHEAD

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North.
In Whitehead’s razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated box car pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once the story of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shatteringly powerful meditation on history.
$13.99 Amazon

Booker Prize Longlisted Exit West

EXIT WEST

BY MOHSIN HAMID


In a city swollen by refugees but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war, Saeed and Nadia lock eyes across their classroom. After a while, they talk, he makes her smile and they start to fall in love. They try not to notice the sound of bombs getting closer every night, the radio announcing new laws, the curfews and the public executions.
Eventually the problem is too big to ignore: it’s not safe for Nadia to live alone and she must move in with Saeed, even though they are not married, and that too is a problem. Meanwhile, rumours are spreading of strange black doors in secret places across the city, doors that lead to London or San Francisco, Greece or Dubai. One day soon the time will come for Nadia and Saeed to seek out one such door, joining the great outpouring of those fleeing a collapsing city, hoping against hope, looking for their place in the world.
$12.99 Amazon

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster

4 3 2 1

BY PAUL AUSTER (US)

On March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths.
Four Fergusons made of the same genetic material, four boys who are the same boy, will go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Loves and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Chapter by chapter, the rotating narratives evolve into an elaborate dance of inner worlds enfolded within the outer forces of history as, one by one, the intimate plots of the four Fergusons’ stories rush on across the tumultuous and fractured terrain of mid-20th century America. A boy grows up – again and again and again.
$12.99  Amazon


Days without end by Sebastian Barry

DAYS WITHOUT END

BY SEBASTIAN BARRY (IRELAND)

After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely 17, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, go on to fight in the Indian wars and, ultimately, the Civil War. Having fled terrible hardships themselves, they find these days to be vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both witness and are complicit in. Their lives are further enriched and endangered when a young Indian girl crosses their path, and the possibility of lasting happiness emerges, if only they can survive.
$12.99 Amazon



Booker Prize Longlisted History of Wolves

HISTORY OF WOLVES

BY EMILY FRIDLUND (US)

Linda, age 14, lives on a dying commune on the edge of a lake in the Midwest of America. She and her parents are the last remaining inhabitants, the others having long since left amid bitter acrimony. She has grown up isolated both by geography and her understanding of the world, and is an outsider at school, regarded as a freak.
One day she notices the arrival of a young family in a cabin on the opposite side of the lake. She starts to befriend them, first their four-year-old son Paul, and then his young mother Patra, who is also lonely and isolated. For the first time she feels a sense of belonging that has been missing from her life.
Leo, the father, is a university professor and an enigmatic figure, perpetually absent. When he returns home, Linda is shunned by the family unit. Desperate to be accepted again, she struggles to resume her place in their home and fails to see the terrible warning signals, which have such devastating consequences.
$9.00 Amazon


Booker Longlisted Solar Bones

SOLAR BONES

BY MIKE MCCORMACK

Marcus Conway has come a long way to stand in the kitchen of his home and remember the rhythms and routines of his life. Considering with his engineer’s mind how things – bridges, banking systems, marriages – are constructed – and how they may come apart.
$14.99 Amazon




Booker Prize Longlisted Reservoir 13RESERVOIR 13

BY JON MCGREGOR

Midwinter in the early years of this century a teenage girl on holiday has gone missing in the hills at the heart of England. The villagers are called up to join the search, fanning out across the moors as the police set up roadblocks and a crowd of news reporters descends on their usually quiet home. Meanwhile, there is work that must still be done: cows milked, fences repaired, stone cut, pints poured, beds made, sermons written, a pantomime rehearsed. The search for the missing girl goes on, but so does everyday life. As it must. As the seasons unfold there are those who leave the village and those who are pulled back; those who come together or break apart. There are births and deaths; secrets kept and exposed; livelihoods made and lost; small kindnesses and unanticipated betrayals. Bats hang in the eaves of the church and herons stand sentry in the river; fieldfares flock in the hawthorn trees and badgers and foxes prowl deep in the woods – mating and fighting, hunting and dying.
$10.81 Amazon

Elmet Fiona Mozley-ElmetELMET

BY FIONA MOZLEY

Daniel is heading north. He is looking for someone. The simplicity of his early life with Daddy and Cathy has turned sour and fearful. They lived apart in the house that Daddy built for them with his bare hands. They foraged and hunted. When they were younger, Daniel and Cathy had gone to school. But they were not like the other children then, and they were even less like them now. Sometimes Daddy disappeared, and would return with a rage in his eyes. But when he was at home he was at peace. He told them that the little copse in Elmet was theirs alone. But that wasn’t true. Local men, greedy and watchful, began to circle like vultures. All the while, the terrible violence in Daddy grew.
Elmet is a lyrical commentary on contemporary English society and one family’s precarious place in it, as well as an exploration of how deep the bond between father and child can go.
Currently unavailable in the U.S.

HOME FIRE

BY KAMILA SHAMSIE

Isma is free. After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she is finally studying in America. But she can’t stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London – or their brother, Parvaiz, who’s disappeared to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew.
Then Eamonn enters the sisters’ lives. The son of a powerful British Muslim politician, Eamonn has his own birth right to live up to – or defy. Two families’ fates are devastatingly entwined in this searing novel that asks: what sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
$12.99 Amazon

Autumn by Ali Smith

AUTUMN

BY ALI SMITH

How about Autumn 2016? Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer.
Autumn is a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. This first in a seasonal quartet casts an eye over our own time.  Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearian jeu d’esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s Pop art: the centuries cast their eyes over our own history-making.
From the imagination of Ali Smith comes a shape-shifting series, wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories, and a story about aging and time and love and stories themselves.
$12.99 Amazon

GOODREADS ...AUGUST 2017

Here are this month's new releases from favorite authors and favorite genres courtesy of Goodreads.com. Can't wait for Sue Grafton's new release..always fun and un-putdownable!

Release Date: August 8
The latest novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory features one of the most famous girls in history, Lady Jane Grey, and her two sisters, each of whom dared to defy her queen....more
Release Date: August 22
The darkest and most disturbing case report from the files of Kinsey Millhone, Y is for Yesterday begins in 1979, when four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a fourteen-year-o...more
Release Date: August 1
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers and Little Children comes a penetrating and hilarious new novel about sex, love, and identity on the frontlines of America’s culture wars.Ev...more





SUMMER READS

I couldn't resist publishing this list from Bookreporter.com...so many well known authors and irresistible storylines. I just finished Hillbilly Elegy by J D Vance and could use something on a lighter vein..


Next Week’s Notables:
Noteworthy Books Releasing on July 18th

Below are some notable titles releasing on July 18th that we would like to make you aware of. We will have more on many of these books in the weeks to come. For a list of additional hardcovers and paperbacks releasing the week of July 17th, see our “On Sale This Week” newsletter here.
AFTERLIFE by Marcus Sakey (Thriller)
The last thing FBI agent Will Brody remembers is the explosion. Claire McCoy, the head of an FBI task force, stands over his body. A terrorist has claimed 18 lives and thrown the nation into panic. Against this horror, Claire fell in love with Will --- and all that matters to them is getting back to each other.
BEAUTIFUL ANIMALS by Lawrence Osborne (Psychological Suspense)
While on a hike on the Greek island of Hydra, Naomi and Samantha come across a man named Faoud, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean sea. When a simple plan of revenge goes horrifically wrong, Faoud must go on the run while the girls come to terms with the terrible consequences they have set in motion.
BLAME by Jeff Abbott (Psychological Thriller)
Jane Norton crashed her car two years ago, killing her friend David and leaving her with amnesia. At first, everyone was sympathetic. Then they found Jane's note: I wish we were dead together. From that day, the town turned against her. Now, she must find out who has just written her an anonymous message: I know what really happened. I know what you don't remember...
THE BREAKDOWN by B.A. Paris (Psychological Thriller)
Cass is having a hard time since the night she saw the car in the woods, in the middle of a downpour, with the woman sitting inside --- the woman who was killed. She’s been trying to put the crime out of her mind; what could she have done, really? She just can’t forget that woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt. Or the silent calls she’s receiving, or the feeling that someone’s watching her.
COLLARED: An Andy Carpenter Mystery by David Rosenfelt (Mystery)
Lawyer Andy Carpenter’s true passion is the Tara Foundation, the dog rescue organization he runs with his friend, Willie Miller. A dog left abandoned at the shelter one morning turns out to be the “DNA dog,” which helps renew the search for a missing child. Andy and his team enter the case, but what they start to uncover is far more complicated and dangerous than they ever expected.
A DISTANT VIEW OF EVERYTHING: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Bea Shandon, an old acquaintance of Isabel Dalhousie’s, introduced a wealthy female friend to a cosmetic surgeon at her most recent dinner party. Then new information comes to light about the surgeon that causes Bea to doubt his motives and the auspiciousness of the match. Isabel agrees to find out more, but as her enquiries take an unexpected turn, she starts to wonder whom exactly she should be investigating.
THE FALLEN: A Quinn Colson Novel by Ace Atkins (Thriller)
Mississippi sheriff Quinn Colson had to admit he admired the bank robbers. A new bank was hit almost every week, and the robbers rushed in and out with such skill and precision it reminded him of raids he’d led back in Afghanistan and Iraq when he was an army ranger. If he stood any chance of catching them, he was going to need the help of old allies, new enemies and a lot of luck.
THE LATE SHOW by Michael Connelly (Thriller)
Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none. But one night she catches two assignments she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. As the investigations entwine, they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job.
LOOK BEHIND YOU by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen (Thriller)
A serial killer is on the loose in San Diego with a most unusual M.O. With each kill, the perpetrator leaves behind mystifying random objects. In this confusing array of unrelated evidence, the one thing that is clear is that the murders all have one characteristic in common: they all require the specific skills of Kendra Michaels, hired gun for both the CIA and FBI.