Booker Prize Shortlist 2024
Now that I've read everything on this year's Booker shortlist, I guess I need to think about which book I'd like to see win the thing. That's why we read shortlists ahead of the winner being announced, right? So we can play the game, get invested, try to predict the winner, be mildly annoyed when our horse doesn't come in first.
Of the six books on the shortlist I've DNFd one (Orbital), not really liked one (Held - which I haven't yet posted a review of, but I probably will in the next few days), thought two were good but not amazing (Creation Lake and Stone Yard Devotional), and loved the other two (The Safekeep and James).
If I were forced to pick a favourite between James and The Safekeep I think it would actually be very easy, and my choice would be The Safekeep. It's stunning and haunting and the 'reveal' genuinely took my breath away. James is a wonderful novel, and I think it's a very important novel - particularly if you're American and live with the cultural heft of Huckleberry Finn - but for me it didn't have anything like the power of the final act of The Safekeep. So personally I would pick that novel as a winner, but I suspect that the Booker committee will reward James and the important conversation it's having with a the American literary canon. And if that ends up being the case I can't say I'll be mad about it, because James is a fantastic book.
I haven't yet finished reading the longlist but there are some very good books on there, too, and frankly I still think that Headshot deserved a place on the shortlist over either Orbital or Held.