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Our regular feature where some of our favourite writers talk about what they’ve been reading. This edition includes authors with a connection to sport. Novelists Chris Cleave and Donna Daley-Clarke feature alongside biographer Miranda Seyour and memoir writer Gary Imlach.
Jim Sells from the Literacy Trust is manager of the Reading the Game project that aims to get young people into books through their love of football. Further details of that initiative can be found here.
Sports journalism in the UK is in a great state. The broadsheets are producing their own supplements, the tabloids have some fantastic writers and even the fanzines are going strong. Kevin Mitchell looks at exactly where it's at. Meanwhile Hunter Davies offers an overview of footballing biographies and how they have changed over the years.
Poet Ian McMillan had an inspired idea and talked Barnsley Football Club into helping him to achieve his goal. Here he talks about being the first poet-in-residence at a British football club.
Tim Parks has written on sport in both his fiction and non-fiction. Here he explores the dramatic impact of sporting thrills and spills in literature.
A list of books referred to in this edition
Our regular feature offers up an alternative Man Booker longlist.
The Man Booker season is always a lively one. There is usually a good old ruck about something whether it’s bad language (, James Kellman, 1994 ), an unsatisfying joint winner pleasing no-one and annoying plenty ( by Michael Ondaatje and by Barry Unsworth, 1992), right author, wrong book (, Ian McEwan, 1998) or what the heck was that all about? (, Keri Hulme, 1985). Happily, this year there was a great cheer when the longlist was announced and the judges were applauded for pulling together a high-quality collection of some of the finest books published in 2005. Less happy was the response to the shortlist that missed some of the favourites to take the prize, including Ian McEwan’s post 9/11 novel and Salman Rushdie’s mesmerising . In the end it was John Banville with who was the lucky man on the night, although rumour has it that it was a close call between him and Kazuo Ishiguro with . Just to add our two pennies worth and to add to the confusion, we have compiled our own longlist – the ones that got away. As even if it was a pretty good longlist there’s always more to add to it. So, read on for more of the great and the good of 2005.
Joanna Briscoe –
A good one for the Booker season, is a useful guide to the preciousness of literary London life, as well as being a potent love story featuring a tormented triangle. Briscoe’s novel is seductive and passionate, powerful and compulsive.
Carol Clewlow –
Almost worth including for the title alone, is a refreshing antidote to the single-and-desperate novels favoured by some chick-lit authors. Examining different women at different stages of their romantic life, this is a refreshing story about life, love and celibacy.
Louise Dean –
confronts one of the most complex and difficult times in recent British history, Northern Ireland in the late 1970’s. Dean brings together two families caught up in the tragedy of a country torn by war.
Diana Evans –
tells the story of Neasdon born and bred twins who retreat into the attic of their family home to contemplate the failing marriage of their Nigerian born mother and Derbyshire born father. Smart, witty and wise, this is a unique story of an eccentric but loveable family.
Bernardine Evaristo –
From the writer who brought Roman London to life in the energetic , is a wondrous journey, reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s and Cervantes’ . Vibrant and magical, Evaristo’s prose is stunning.
Laurie Graham –
Laugh-out-loud books rarely feature on any list associated with the Man Booker, but if the judges ever did decide to pick on a funny writer, Laurie Graham would have to be a top choice. Her latest book is an effervescent novel based on the life of Mrs Simpson – caustically funny, vivid and original.
P. D. James –
If a crime writer were ever to be shortlisted, P. D. James would be an extremely deserving winner. The classiest of crime writers, her novels are dark, evocative and gripping. features her much-loved detective and part-time poet Adam Dalgliesh, this time tackling a bizarre murder set on a remote island.
Tim Lott –
Lott’s tightly plotted novel is inventively structured and a rip-roaring read to boot. The story is told as a series of transcripts based around the death of Dr Alex Seymour and also features a neatly post-modern twist as the author himself is employed to sort out the mystery. Cunning and thrilling.
Kevin MacNeil –
Poet Kevin MacNeil has turned his poetic genius to fiction in this humorous account of life in the Outer Hebrides. Hilarious, inventive and readable, tells the story of an angry young man railing against the culture in which he is living as well as battling with the encroaching culture of globalisation.
Stephanie Merritt –
The harrowing tale of a love affair unravelling is bleak and desperate, yet retains a humour and warmth that makes this an absorbing and moving novel. is the story of yet another eternal triangle and the disullisionment and pain that is an inevitable part of that.
Alice Munro –
Yes, yes, we know – short stories aren’t permitted in Man Booker world, however Munro’s fabulous new collection does contain three interconnected short stories that perhaps could count as a very, very short novel – sort of. Anyway, she is a superb writer who deserves huge recognition for her delicate and multi-layered stories.
Patrick Neate –
Neate is a great chronicler of contemporary London, and in he brings together the multi-cultural melting pot of Chiswick, as seen through the eyes of an alcoholic Ugandan Asian private detective. Wise-cracking and slick is also an intriguing examination of Britishness, prejudice and identity.
Caryl Phillips –
The ever sharp new novel by Phillips is a haunting and melancholy account of a great performer battling with race politics at the turn of century America. Beautiful and gripping, this is Phillips on fine form.
Rebecca Ray –
Ray’s first novel presents a brilliantly gloomy picture of a drab town on the Welsh border. But don’t be put off, it is also a penetrating account of a complex family and community seen through the eyes of an incomer whose attempts to help go horribly wrong.
Fiona Shaw –
Shaw’s second novel is a sophisticated historical romance that captures the damage and the pain caused by war. With exquisitely drawn observation combined with a rollicking adventure story, is powerful and compulsive.
Vikas Swarup –
A lively and quirky story from a master storyteller, is the story of a poor Indian boy, Ram who finds a unique means of survival – winning the TV quiz show We are taken on an amazing journey through Ram’s life and contemporary India as the story unfolds.
Adam Thorpe –
Meticulously researched, tenderly written and rich in storyline, offers an astonishing insight into the second world war as seen through the perspective of art, military strategy and the lives of ordinary people.
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