pick#booker #booker2024 #longlist
My last longlist book. This is an interesting narrative style, a series of snapshots from each fighter‘s past, future, and rather violent present. The 8 girls fighting for the u-18 boxing championship in-front of 12 fans in a neglected arena. But the narrative is doing a lot more than just following our neglected lady gladiators.
My full longlist summary will go in the comments.
pickPosing Copper with the🎄has been a challenge this season! Or maybe he only cooperates when I tell him it is for Litsy?! 😂
Audio 🎧 was a good way to experience this and I give kudos to the narrator Cassandra Campbell 🌟 Her voice was perfect for the present tense and the repetition. We get such interesting insight into a broad view of the female psyche; how diverse our wants and needs might be. We are fighters all.
“Her head feels like it is filled with undercooked pie”
#LitPie #PieinBooks #iLovePie #CaresPieShow #ToBShortList #ChocPearPie 🥧
Starting my last from the #Booker2024 #longlist. This is my first book after drowning in Faulkner‘s Absalom, Absalom! for 20 hours at 4-minutes a page. So, this one is so far crazy fast and clear
so-soI had avoided this book before because I really dislike the violence of boxing, but I figured I‘d give it a go since it was on the #TOBlonglist. I reacted to it about the way I expected—I enjoyed some of the character studies, but the boxing was too forward in the story and overall I found it a bit thin.
pickHappened to be reading this when the Mike Tyson/Jake Paul fight was being aired. A wonderful collection of journalist (and avid boxing fan) Liebling‘s sports articles for the New Yorker, regarding the first-rate pugilists of 1940s and 1950s America, as the advent of television-aired matches began to rob Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium and amateur boxing clubs of paying audiences.
pickLow pick 3.5/5
I wasn't too interested in the book overall but there are some things I really enjoyed, mostly the structure. The book is laid out following the bracket of the tournament. We learn about each fighter as they fight. The story has a great flow back and forth from the boxers present, past and future. This kept me interested enough to finish the book even though the overall story was a bit bland.
pickThe device of telling the story through boxing matches is done skillfully but still became a little tedious and repetitive after a while. My dad's family are (or were; I'm not sure anyone still does it) amateur boxers, so it was interesting for me to imagine these young women boxers in their place. It was also interesting to see the motivations of each boxer, how each reacted to successes and setbacks and related to each other through the sport.
My top two:
- Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
- James by Percival Everett
Other books I really took to and that are really well done:
- Orbital by Samantha Harvey
- Held by Anne Michaels
The book that was just too cautious to be great
-My Friends by Hisham Matar
The imperfect but with terrific elements
-Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
-Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel 7h
-Playground by Richard Powers
-Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
The book that never quite took off and overcame itself
-This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud
The ones that I didn't like (although I can talk about some of their strengths)
-The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
-Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
-Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange 7h