Blog Archive

1 March 2024

New in the Great Writers Series – Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert was a 19^th French writer who is best remembered for his classic novel, Madame Bovary, the story of a bored wife of a provincial doctor who has an affair with disastrous consequences.

Flaubert is the latest author in Michael Duffy’s Great Writers series, in which Michael profiles and ‘interviews’ authors. In all instances throughout the series the responses given by the authors are taken from things the authors are known to have said or written.

The Great Writers project pages can be accessed from page menus under the ‘Projects’ tab, as well as through the large display panel with buttons on the main page of this website. But since you’re here, here is a link to the Project Page, and here is a link to the Flaubert profile. Enjoy!

- bikerbuddy

5 March 2024

Email Subscriptions come to the Reading Project!

I was asked by someone last week whether the Reading Project has email subscriptions. I had to say that we didn’t. Since then, I’ve looked into it, and with an example from updates from Mike’s No Happy Nonsense website, I was led to a suitable host for email subscriptions.

As of today, an email subscription page is accessible from most pages on this website, either from the top menu bar or at the bottom of the About/Blog page or the main page of the website. Over the course of time, I’ll also introduce the subscription panel at the bottom of reviews.

But since you’re reading this and this is the most convenient place to try it out, you can give the email subscription a go here. It’s free.

PLEASE NOTE: You do not have to consent on the popup consent form that follows to receiving Promotional Emails, or to allowing your Personal Data to be used. Leave them unchecked if you wish. Just click the red Subscribe button on the pop-up forms.

- bikerbuddy

8 March 2024

Women’s Prize Longlist and Prize Season

The major prize season for 2024 has begun. The longlist for the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction was announced on Tuesday, with 16 books on the list this year.

The full list is:

• Hangman by Maya Binyam, published by ONE, Pushkin Press
• In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, published by époque press
• And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott, published by Allen & Unwin
• The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, published by Jonathan Cape
• The Maiden by Kate Foster, published by Mantle
• Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, published by Viking
• Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, published by Canongate Books
• Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, published by Jonathan Cape
• Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, published by Faber & Faber
• 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee, published by Virago
• The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord, published by Gollancz
• Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, published by Picador
• Nightbloom by Peace by Adzo Medie, published by Oneworld
• Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan, published by Jonathan Cape
• River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure, published by Duckworth Books
• A Trace of Sun by Pam Williams, published by Legend Press

The shortlist will be announced on 24 April and the winner on 13 June.

The Women’s Prize also announced this year it will award a prize for non-fiction. The longlist for this prize was announced on 15 February, the list of books can be found here: Women’s Prize For Non Fiction - Women’s Prize : Women's Prize (womensprize.com). The winner will also be announced on 13 June.

We currently have no plans to read and review Women’s Prize nominees or winners, although we have reviewed some. However, we do have an ongoing project to read Booker Prize winners. As always, the International Booker Prize is announced first each year, and the longlist for that is released in a few days’ time, 11 March. The shortlist is announced on the 9 April and the winner will be announced 21 May.

- Toriaz

12 March 2024

Booker International Longlist Announced

Following the announcement of the longlist for the Women’s Prize in fiction is the next major prize announcement, the International Booker Longlist for 2024, with 13 titles. The shortlist will be announced on the 9 April and the eventual winner will be announced on the 21 May.

We’ll feature the shortlist in this blog when it comes out next month. We have an ongoing project on this site to eventually read and review all the Booker and International Booker Prize winners since 1969 when the prize began. In the meantime, if you’re interested in looking at what the longlist has to offer this year, click here to check out the Booker Prize website for a rundown on all the books.

- bikerbuddy