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Honoured to have been in the audience to see Michael Ondaatje awarded the #manbookergoldenprize !! One of the best books I‘ve read recently for definite. He gave a beautiful speech about all the wonderful novels which don‘t get remembered or awarded prizes like the booker. The only one I remember right now was Sam Selvin‘s the lonely Londoners, which I intend to read immediately

Really good! Not my pick for the #manbookergoldenprize but im glad I read it even after voting closed. So incredibly original (which I prize SO highly), sensitive and well written. Some bits of symbolism felt a little obvious but what writer isn‘t guilty of that, and the subject matter wasnt entirely to my taste. I‘d still recommend the book tho

(Pic irrelevant, just a nice one of me reading in a cafe)

Just voted for In a Free State for the #manbookergoldenprize and wanted to say why! Would I say it was the shortlisted book that I enjoyed reading the most? No, English Patient and Moon Tiger were better reads for me, but IAFS was the one that had me thinking the most, and it felt to me like the one that most summed up what I want the Booker prize to stand for. How did other people vote???

3/5 for the #manbookergoldenprize

I thought it was immensely well written, well crafted, mature, thoughtful and the writer is clearly a genius. There was nothing about that that I thought was done badly or crudely, which is why I marked it as a pick. At the same time it was just so brutal and depressing I didn‘t really enjoy a second of reading it so it‘s hard to say I truly loved it. Would absolutely read more by this author tho

Loved this book! In with a chance of being my pick for the #manbookergoldenprize though I‘m still sort of hoping to read one that‘s this mind blowing and less colonial. I was a bit uncomfortable with some of the descriptions of foreign countries, they felt quite dated. I loved the writing style and the protagonist though, it was a very complicated beautiful book.

Two English people, Bobby and Linda, undertake a long car journey across an unnamed East African country (Uganda?) where a coup by the president has just displaced the king. Just freed of colonialism the president‘s men replicate the selfsame power structures, similar instruments of oppression of their own peoples as the whites did before.
During their road trip Bobby and Linda (both so white and racist) become aware of... (continued below 👇)