Orange Prize

At risk of boring everybody with another post about the Orange Prize, I did just want to jot down some thoughts in response to today's announcment of this year's longlist. The Orange Prize is something that has interested me for many years, since I was working in public libraries at the start of the decade. In 2003 we had a big Orange Prize promotion and all of the staff were encouraged to read at least one title from the longlist; it was great fun discussing the books in the staffroom over tea and I challenged myself to read as many as I could so that I could join in all of the discussions. I didn't quite get through the whole list that year, but I managed a fair number. I wrote quite early on on my blog about the number of Orange longlisted titles that I have read since the prize started. What I loved (and still love) about the Orange prize list is the fact that it introduces me to authors that I might not otherwise read, and read types of books that I would usually pass over.

This year's list is interesting, especially as there were lots of authors that I was expecting to see on the list which weren't there (Sarah Dunant, Lori Lansens, Anna Pietrioni, Rose Tremain and Margaret Forster). I don't intend to read my way through the longlist - I don't especially want to read Wolf Hall, but I have asked for a couple of titles from obliging publishers and reserved a couple of interesting looking titles at the library...

I intend to read:
Hearts and Minds (Craig)
This is how (Hyland)
Secret Son (Lalami)
The still point (Sackville) - though it's not yet in the library
The very thought of you (Alison)
The Lacuna (Kingsolver)

and have already read:
The way things look to me (Farooki) - very enjoyable read which I definitely recommend
The little stranger (Waters) - wonderfully gripping ghost story, although not perhaps my favourite of Water's novels
The Long song (Levy) - very well constructed read, but again not my favourite of the author's work
A gate at the stairs (Moore) - only read this last week actually, and enjoyed it - had not come across Moore before until Amazon suggested it to me.
Small Wars (Jones) - absolutely loved this when I read it in the summer. Again a big fat recommendation for that one.

(So my favourites out of the 5 that I have read are the Farooki and Small Wars, not necessarily the ones that I think are likely to win, but the ones that I have most enjoyed reading)

I'm not going to make predictions about what I think will be on the longlist; I don't even promise to review all of the books on the longlist that I read as it can get a bit tedious when everyone is blogging about the same books, but I hope to join in plenty of discussions about the prize in the next few weeks and hope to once more broaded my reading horizons.