Some Books Chris Read

On Awards Shortlists

At the beginning of the year I decided that I was going to attempt to read last year's Booker Prize longlist. For whatever reason I've been very slow getting through it - of the thirteen books on the longlist I've read three and DNFd another two, which leaves me with eight more books to read before this year's longlist is announced next week. Something tells me that I won't manage it, which is a little disappointing but also fine.

If you've been following the blog you'll also know that I've started reading my way through the Ursula K Le Guin Prize shortlist, and so far I'm really enjoying the books on it. Reading the Booker longlist is something I used to do years ago before I hit my long reading slump. I've always enjoyed literary fiction but I struggle to know what's current in it, purely because I don't really know anybody who reads it and so don't receive word of mouth recommendations. My DNF rate on the list itself has always been high, but I always tend to really like the book chosen as the winner, and the list exposes me to books that I'd likely never have heard of without it. Even though this is my first year reading the Le Guin prize (and in fact the first year I've been aware of its existence) I'm finding that it feels a little similar to the Booker list, in that it's comprised of a lot of books I hadn't heard of. While it's largely speculative fiction, which I'm much more familiar with as a genre than literary fiction, it doesn't have much overlap with the Hugo and Nebula lists (which are often very similar, and often contain works that I already knew about). And, in fact, the books I've read so far all seem to feel a little more "literary" than they do commercial. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see The Skin And Its Girl or Orbital show up on the Booker longlist next week, in the same way that Martin Macinnes' In Ascension was on last year's Booker longlist and this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist.

Reading the Ursula K Le Guin prize list has reminded me how much I enjoy working through a curated list, and so I'm now beginning to think about how I might structure my year of reading around awards lists that are of particular value to me as a reader. When I made my list of books I wanted to read this year back in January I started with the 2023 Booker Prize list, and though I haven't really got through them it's been nice to have that list to go back to whenever I find myself in need of a new book to read. Part of the way my brain works is also that the longer something sits on a list (or a shelf, or whatever) the less interested I become in it, and I think part of the reason I haven't got through the Booker list is that there was no time pressure to do so. The prize has already been awarded, and there's no mystery about what's going to win. Compare that to the Ursula K. Le Guin prize, where my brain is telling me that I have until October to get through those books. I bet if you come back to me in a month or two I'll have read them all.

This has made me decide to sit down and figure out which awards I find particularly valuable to me as a reader, and to see if it's possible to plan a year of reading around them. I'm working on the assumption that the various lists will usually be announced at the same time each year, with the awards also being handed out at around the same time, so I'm using this year's dates for this exercise.

These actually line up quite nicely, and spreading the reading out over the year like this feels very doable. It basically means that most of my reading between July and November will be pulled from awards lists, but I think that' fine. The Ignyte Awards are new to me, much like the Ursula K Le Guin Awards, but I really like the selection of books that they've chosen. I've already read a few of the titles from their Novella category and liked the majority of them, so I'm interested to see how I get on with the rest of the list.

I think it's reasonable to assume that I won't be finishing the 2023 Booker list this year, but I'm okay with that. Check back with me in a few months and let's see how I get on with these other lists.

This blog doesn't have a comments section, by design. If you want to chat about any of the posts here, drop me an email at chris @ loottheroom dot uk.

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