
Show Notes
We're a month away from finding out which title will take home the 2023 Booker Prize so what better time to take a deep dive into this year's final six? This week, in the first of two parts, we're exploring half of the books. Listen in to hear what Jo and James make of them, whether virtuousness is a desirable quality in these novels and what the shortlist says about the state of fiction today.
In this episode Jo and James discuss:
Their overview of the 2023 shortlist, and what it says about the state of fiction today
How these books would behave if they were guests in your house
The common themes that run through these novels
Jonathan Escoffery's If I Survive You
Paul Harding's This Other Eden
Sarah Bernstein's Study for Obedience
Reading list:
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
This Other Eden by Paul Harding
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
A full transcript of the episode is available at our website.
Follow The Booker Prize Podcast so you never miss an episode. Visit http://thebookerprizes.com/podcast to find out more about us, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok @thebookerprizes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from The Booker Prize Podcast
Earlier this week, author Jenny Erpenbeck and translator Michael Hofmann were announced as the winners of the International Booker Prize 2024, for the novel, Kairos. Jenny and Michael join Jo and James to talk about whether their win has truly sunk in yet and what might be next, and administrator of the International Booker Prize, Fiammetta Rocco also joins to give some insight into how the prize works. It's our last episode of this season of The Booker Prize Podcast so make sure you don't miss this one – but all our previous episodes will continue to be available so you can listen whenever you want.
With under a week until the International Booker Prize 2024 ceremony, we're back with the second part of our deep dive into this year's six shortlist books. Listen in to hear what Jo and James think of the remaining three books on the list, common themes that run across the shortlisted reads and which book they want to see win the award.
We're three weeks away from the International Booker Prize 2024 award ceremony, so we thought it was high time to take a deep dive into this year's six shortlist books. In the first of two parts, we're exploring three of the books on this week's podcast episode. Listen in to hear what Jo and James make of them, common themes that run across the shortlisted reads and how the International Booker can expand one's world through literature.
Esi Edugyan’s thrilling novel follows the astonishing adventures of its titular character, Washington Black, whose escape from the brutal cane plantations of Barbados was only the beginning. Shortlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize and set to be released as a glitzy television adaptation starring Sterling K Brown and co-produced by Edugyan later this year, what better excuse to dive into the novel?
In 1984, many assumed that J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun had the Booker Prize in the bag. But actually, it was Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac that clinched the prize in the end. This week, we're exploring the bookies' favourite vs the Booker winner to ask which book should have won: Brookner's short, quiet novel set in a genteel Swiss hotel or Ballard's long and action-packed autobiographical epic set in wartime Shanghai.