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#Booker2025

The owner of the winery takes the people who work in the warehouse and the office to see them doing it - he says he wants them to be aware of what actually happens on the land. The day they go up there the workers are burning the pruned stems in piles on the grass at the sides. The white smoke rises into the air. The sun shines through the rising smoke. There's the scent of the smoke and the quiet crackle of the burning stems.

#Booker2025

Finally finished this chunkster! I usually get a bit itchy at any book over 300 pages, but the #Booker2025 shortlist made me pick it up (thank you, my library system).

Some great moments, but mostly I felt disconnected from the young titular characters. Think for me a book centring Pooja or Mama's story/ies would be more interesting. Acknowledging a criticism (trope of predatory older artist) within the narrative doesn't "fix" the issue, either!

I finished this #booker2025 title days ago but have been struggling to explain why it didn‘t work as well for me as it seems to have for everyone else. A long book told in multiple perspectives across many years, it touches on so many impactful themes but never really gelled for me as a whole. Some sections I never wanted to end, some sections were harder to get through. I appreciate its inclusion on the shortlist but I wasn‘t excited by jt.

I attempt to read at least the Booker short list but usually fail. However, I did read this interesting book with its precise and refined writing style. The tension from both the writing and the mid book displacement kept me engaged throughout. One doesn‘t need to understand what exactly is going on to feel that whatever is going on, this is exactly how to write about it. Many friends hated this book. I rather loved it. #booker2025

Shoot. I really wanted the tagged book to be on the short list. #Booker2025

Glad Flashlight made it, but of the others I've only read Audition which was not a winner for me!

#Booker2025

If now is everything, Pepper has chosen to use it for an afternoon snooze.

My 12th from the #Booker longlist is one to read slowly and carefully. Layered and indirect. Teresa returns to a coastal town in Greece to mourn and read Homer. And she instead spends a lot of time insinuating herself into the private lives of locals. The reader has to work out the actual story and what she‘s doing. Recommended, but know it‘s difficult.
#Booker2025

My 11th #Booker is one I really fell for and adore. Thomas Flett scrapes for shrimp at low tide with a horse and nets. He's feels old, but he‘s only 20. Then someone comes and gets him inspired.

That prose. We get excited when Tom gets excited, reserved when he's suspicious, won over when he's somehow won over, and we're steady and accepting when he is. And yet it's never too much.

I feel good recommending it to anyone.
#Booker2025

My 10th #Booker is an American roadway novel. Tom is dealing with, or not dealing with, male uncertainty. He is confronting his own promise - to leave his wife once his youngest child reaches 18 because she had an affair twelve years prior. (The title is a play on the marriage vows.)

I've kept thinking about this book. Initially I felt it didn't do enough, but slowly I came to realize how well it does what it intended.
#Booker2025