08-01-2019, 02:35 PM | #1 |
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Always a Bridesmaid • August 2019
Help select what we'll read and discuss next!
The topic is Always a Bridesmaid. This topic is for books that have been nominated or shortlisted for major awards but have never won any. Detailed nominating and voting guidelines can be found here. Basically, nominations are open for about four days and each person may nominate up to three literary selections which will go automatically to the vote. Voting by post then opens for four days, and a voter may give each nomination either one or two votes but only has a limited number of votes to use which is equal to the number of nominations minus one. Any questions, feel free to ask. We hope that you will read the selection with us and join in the discussion. * Nominations are complete. Initial voting is now complete. Run-off voting is complete. Final results-
Last edited by sun surfer; 08-12-2019 at 11:25 AM. |
08-02-2019, 11:03 AM | #2 |
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I like the topic. It's not too hard to find the nominees that didn't win through google searches. The official websites for awards are one source. Also sometimes Wikipedia will have the information too.
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08-02-2019, 05:14 PM | #3 |
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Thanks, Bookworm_Girl. There’s a LOT of possibilities, considering all nominees from all the various major awards from all their years. Another way someone could look for nominees is on Goodreads- there are usually lists for nominees/shortlists of awards. They’re often by year so Wikipedia might be better if all years are included on one page. I like looking on Goodreads because I can always click a book and see its page to help judge if I might be interested. Also, an easy way to check what a book has won (or that it hasn’t won anything major, heh) is on Goodreads- at the top of a book’s page one of the info categories is awards won with a list of them all, if any.
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08-04-2019, 10:13 PM | #4 | |
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My first nomination is The Glass Room by Simon Mawer.
Booker Prize Nominee (2009), Exclusive Books Boeke Prize Nominee (2011), European Book Prize Nominee for Fiction (2012), Walter Scott Prize Nominee (2010), Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize Nominee (2010) From Amazon UK: Quote:
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08-04-2019, 11:03 PM | #5 | |
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I would like to nominate The Great House by Nicole Krauss as my second book. It did win the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction (2011). Does this count as a major award? I've not heard of it before, and it doesn't seem like something people outside the US would know.
Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction Shortlist (2011), National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (2010) From Goodreads: Quote:
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08-04-2019, 11:16 PM | #6 | |
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My third nomination is Salt Rain by Sarah Armstrong.
It was shortlisted for multiple awards including the Miles Franklin, the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards and the Dobbie Award. From Amazon AU: Quote:
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08-05-2019, 02:02 PM | #7 |
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Wonderful nominations, Bookworm_Girl. I guess we can each decide what counts as ‘major’ but for what it’s worth I agree with you about the Anisfield-Wolf.
I basically have mine sorted but am still waffling between two. I’ll post them before beginning the vote, which will probably be some hours away from starting depending on when I can get the time to organise the first post list to be ready. Until the vote starts nominations are still open if anyone else wants to post any! |
08-05-2019, 08:44 PM | #8 | |||
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All right, I'm going to post my nominees all at once and the update the list and get the vote started.
All my nominees ended up being Booker nominees, but I really did look at nominees from other prizes! My longlist was very long and I slowly winnowed to four and then three, and it just happened that they all ended up being Booker nominees (even the fourth that I'm not nominating). Oddly enough, since I tend to notice little things like this afterwards, these books also didn't have many or any other nominations from other awards, while most on my longer list had multiple nominations each from different awards. Also oddly, of the final four I had narrowed to, one was published in 1970, one 1980 and one 1990 (the other breaking the mould being published 2016). For anybody curious I'll mention here rather than at the end that the book that I had to decide on not to nominate was The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark from 1970, nominee for the (Lost) Man Booker Prize, something of a thriller, a 'whydunnit' so to speak, about a woman who suddenly decides to rather drastically change herself over and fly south, where something bad will happen. Anyway, onto my actual nominees! -Hot Milk by Deborah Levy This was nominated for the Booker and the Goldsmiths Prize. It's about an adult daughter and mysteriously partially paralysed mother who travel together to the coast of southern Spain for a 'last stand' of sorts to see a famous but strange doctor to try to cure the mother. Goodreads, 220 pages, 2016, South Africa & England Quote:
-Lies of Silence by Brian Moore This was nominated for the Booker. It's about a man who, during the Troubles, is ordered to park his car at a Belfast hotel carpark. There is a moral dilemma in that he believes the car contains a bomb that will kill many people at the hotel if exploded, but he is warned that if he doesn't do it his kidnapped wife (whom he was on the verge of leaving for another woman) will be killed. Goodreads, 230 pages, 1990, Northern Ireland, Canada & the U.S. Quote:
-Pascali's Island by Barry Unsworth This was nominated for the Booker. It's a book about paranoia set on a small Greek island in 1908, the waning days of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. A man, Basil Pascali, has lived there for 20 years working as a spy, regularly sending updates to Constantinople but never hearing a peep from anyone there regarding his mission, or anything else for that matter. He begins to become worried the villagers might have found him out, and in the midst of this a charming Englishman arrives on the island and becomes entangled with the woman that Pascali pines for. This all leads to a 'complex game' being played out. Goodreads, 192 pages, 1980, England Quote:
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08-05-2019, 09:17 PM | #9 |
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Nominations are complete and voting is now open!
Voting will close exactly four days from this post. Each person has FIVE votes to use. |
08-05-2019, 10:35 PM | #10 |
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I'll be relying on you folks for having made great picks .
I do not follow nor pay much attention to any of the prizes for books so was not really qualified to make any nominations. Pretty much all I know is that of the two Bookers awarded to my own countrymen the first was rubbish (in my own opinion and that of many) and was a one book wonder as the author never wrote another book. The second, I can best quote a book reviewer (so open in his response he must be honest) when asked if he would be reviewing it the response was that he would not be reading it any time soon - I bought a copy to see for myself, was never able to get into it (it is also starting to look like a one book wonder as nothing else from the author has appeared in the 6 years since - at least not prolific). So looking forward to a surprise in among the nominations of also rans . |
08-06-2019, 04:57 AM | #11 |
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Only two Kiwi Bookers? Seems like there should be more. Too bad neither ended up appealing to you.
I might sound like a broken record, but of course if you'd like (or anyone else likes) feel free to vote even if you didn't nominate anything. The more votes the merrier! But either way I hope you'll at least end up liking whichever selection we read a little better than the reads you mentioned, heh. Last edited by sun surfer; 08-06-2019 at 05:07 AM. |
08-06-2019, 06:32 AM | #12 |
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I'll give my votes to:
-1 for Salt Rain -1 for Great House -1 for Lies of Silence -1 for Pascali's Island -1 for Hot Milk And now I've run dry of votes. I had a read of all the previews already and they all look appealing. I'd be happy to read any of the six. Salt Rain sounds very interesting and I really enjoyed the preview. Great House also sounds intriguing and I couldn't help but think the title uses two halves of two Dickens titles, Great Expectations and Bleak House. I'm not sure if that's coincidental or by design, but regardless it makes me curious what a book called Bleak Expectations would be like... Of course I'm also interested in the ones I nominated, and the preview of The Glass Room was interesting too, but I can't vote for them all. |
08-06-2019, 08:45 AM | #13 | |
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08-06-2019, 05:46 PM | #14 | |
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I had read her first novel The Rehearsal previously and thought that a pretty lumpy effort, even for a first go, together with having a tired theme. I didn't see a budding super novelist in it and so was quite surprised with the The Luminaries Booker. But maybe there is another book coming, six years in the works so far, that will establish an enduring reputation, otherwise may be another Keri Hulme (no second book for more than 30 years, although rumors fanned by her persist that she is still writing it ) |
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08-06-2019, 06:36 PM | #15 |
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Hot Milk - 1
Lies of Silence - 2 Pascali's Island - 1 Salt Run - 1 To take the safest course I voted for the four shortest books (that's a fib ). |
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