Hope Book Club, Ep 15: The Booker Prize Edition

Natasha Moore and Katrina Roe have picked out their favourite Booker Prize winners ahead of the 2019 annoucement:

• Milkman by Anna Burns (2018)
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017)
• Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (2014)

Milkman was the Booker Prize winner in 2018.  It’s a tale of gossip and hearsay set in the heavily politicised atmosphere of Northern Ireland during The Troubles.  The writing style divided critics, with long sentences and an original approach to punctuation.  For example, the whole story is told without any characters being named.

George Saunders’ first novel – Lincoln in the Bardo – won the Booker prize in 2017.  It’s the story of Abraham Lincoln, grieving his young son, as told by the spirits who inhabit the graveyard where he’s buried.   This is a novel that ‘teaches you how to read it’.

And Narrow Road to the Deep North is a gruelling Australian novel set in the Japanese Prisoner of War/Labour camps that built the Thai-Burma railway.  It shows the full horror of how Australian prisoners were treated, including torture, but also explains the Japanese mindset at the time. It won the Booker Prize in 2014.

The winner of the 2019 Booker Prize will be announced on October 14.

Until then, sink your teeth into the Booker Prize edition of the Hope Book Club. Because life’s just better with a book!