Weird and wonderful

It's that time of year again - awaiting the announcement of the shortlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction (Wednesday). I have read eight of the sixteen books on the Longlist and this pile is my shortlist. These are the books I have enjoyed the most and think are the best of the ones I have read. I do suspect, listening to what others are saying, that a couple of the ones I have not read may be on the list. And of course I will most likely be totally out of kilter with the judges, but that is all part of the fun. 

I am not recommending any of the books, as tastes in reading differ so much, and these are not books that everyone would want to read. All I will say is that they are all well written and deal, within a fictional context, with some interesting, sometimes quite difficult, issues. 


Great Circle is probably the most accessible, but it is a hefty book. Telling the story of an early female aviator and her determination to achieve what she had set her heart on, alongside the story of a modern Hollywood star who is playing the aviator in a film. Takes a bit of reading, but is very well worth the effort. Gordon has read this one and thought it was great. Significantly he has for the last two years only read one of the Longlist books and they turned out to be the winners . . .