Bibliography, January 2020

BOTM: T. Salih, Season of migration to the north (1966)

C. Birch, Jamrach's menagerie (2011)

M. Dinshaw, Outlandish Knight: life of Steven Runciman (2016)

E. Edugyan, Half blood blues (2011)

A. Forest, Autumn term (1948)

V. Franklin and A. Johnson, Menus that made history (2019)
S. Kelman, Pigeon English (2011)

J. Mahjoub, A line in the river (2018)

J. Ryle (ed.), The Sudan handbook (2015)

Lots of good stuff here. All of this was worthwhile, Edugyan and Kelman the best of the recent fiction (I'm back to the 2011 Booker shortlist). Two outstanding ones. Minoo Dinshaw's biography of Steven Runciman was absolutely delightful. It's a fantastic immersion into a world now gone, centred on Runciman himself, but illuminated by a vast cast of characters. Some of those are famous; some are now obscure, but deftly realised without losing the thread of Runciman's own life. It's a triumph. It is edged out however, by Tayeb Salih's short novel about the impact British influence had on the Sudanese. That sounds much drier than it is. It's a tight evocative piece looking at both Sudanese village life as it enters post-colonial 'modernity' and the experience of the African in early and mid twentieth century Britain. It also has a pleasing amount of drama and plot. It's a very good use of 169 pages.

And my ranking for the 2011 Booker shortlist is now complete. I think they got this right, though my memory of Barnes is imperfect. The commentators were also right: this was a poor list, with half of them being not really up to par. The top three were good, though not outstanding.

1. Barnes, Sense of an Ending
2. Edugyan, Half blood blues
3. Kelman, Pigeon English
4. Miller, Snowdrops
5.  Birch, Jamrach's menagerie
6. The Sisters Brothers