M. Atwood, The Testaments (2019)
M. Atwood, The handmaid's tale (1985)
E.M. Brent-Dyer, The new house at the chalet school (1935)
B. Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other (2019)
C. Obioma, An orchestra of minorities (2019)
J. Paxman, The political animal (2002)
S. Rushdie, Quichotte (2019)
E. Shafak, 10 minutes, 38 seconds in this strange world (2019)
I love Bee Wilson's work. I think she writes well and has exceptionally interesting things to say. I need to read the lot. This is fascinating on our food culture (and depressing, particularly as I write this just after Halloween). Like all books of this kind, it makes me want to make bread, but it also makes we want to think more about a much wider range of foods (and drinks). Read it; and read her Consider the fork as well, which is even better.
It probably would have been book of the month anyway, but it wasn't really challenged by this years' Booker shortlist, which was weak. I agreed with the judges (I am ignoring the sentimental award to Atwood, which was emphatically not deserved), and thought Evaristo was the best. It was engaging, nicely phrased and vocalised from its various viewpoints. And I thought it managed the contradictions and and problems of its narrators well. There's a cute, semi-twist in a final coda that I quite liked, but some didn't. I don't think it matters very much. Of the others, it was tight between Shafak and Obioma, and I applaud the ambition of Ellmann. Rushdie and Atwood felt tired and shadows of the former selves. I reread the Handmaid's tale after this, which I liked a lot more than I did first time round, and just served to show how pedestrian the sequel is.
My ranking.
1. Evaristo
2. Shafak
3. Obioma
4. Ellmann
5. Atwood
6. Rushdie
