The 2021 Stella Prize longlist has been announced: Continue reading
Tag Archives: Stella Prize
Stella Prize 2021 Longlist Predictions
The Stella Prize 2021 longlist will be announced tomorrow night (tune in here).
Unlike the judges, I’ve only read a dozen or so eligible books but I’m aware of a bunch that keep crossing my radar. On that rather flimsy basis, I’m predicting the longlist*. Continue reading
So I made a really long list for the purposes of Stella predictions…
This is the list I’ll be making my Stella longlist predictions from. Sorry, there’s no particular order. The list seems much shorter than last year’s, so what have I missed? Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. Alas, conditions did not favour diving this weekend but I did enjoy some time on the shore looking at the angry sea. Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. My first dive (from Rye pier) – exhilarating, terrifying, exhausting, addictive. Continue reading
Six Degrees of Separation – from Margaret to The Mussel Feast
It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up.
This month we begin with Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. Continue reading
Stella Prize 2020 – and the winner is…
See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill is the winner of the 2020 Stella Prize. Continue reading
Stella Prize 2020 – my prediction
The Stella Prize 2020 winner is announced tonight (tune in for the live announcement here). Continue reading
The Yield by Tara June Winch
Where to start with this big story, plump with important themes, lush language, and rich history? No review that I will do of Tara June Winch’s novel, The Yield, will capture all the elements of this book, so instead I will focus on the two parts that drew me in – the experience of grief, and the meaning of words. Continue reading
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
When I was sixteen, I visited my grandma one afternoon and, on arriving at her house, found her in tears. The last of the ‘Old Girls’ had died. The ‘Old Girls’ were her life-long friends – a group of women who had met during the War and stayed close for decades. They always referred to themselves as the ‘Old Girls’, even when they were young women. And so suddenly, my grandma was the last Old Girl. It was deeply shocking for me because, until that moment, I had never really thought about friends dying.
This is the subject of Charlotte Wood’s novel, The Weekend. Three friends in their seventies gather for a last weekend at the holiday home of their mutual friend, Sylvie, who has recently died. There’s former restaurateur Jude, organised and bossy; Wendy, an acclaimed intellectual, who continues to write; and beautiful, flighty Adele, a renowned actress whose work has dwindled to almost nothing. Over the course of the weekend, the dynamics of their relationships are revealed, and the absence of Sylvie felt.
This was something nobody talked about: how death could make you petty. And how you had to find a new arrangement among your friends, shuffling around the gap of the lost one, all of you suddenly mystified by how to be with one another. Continue reading