Held is a book that doesn’t give it to you on a plate. In fact you may have to bring your own plate. It will however hold your hand. Feel the gaps. Breathe. Give it space. Be held. You will get out of it what it let’s you put in. Stunning book.

I agree with you that it feels very hard to predict this year’s winner. I keep coming back to the judges’ emphasis on rereading. I can’t see some of these books continuing to enlighten and improve on a 3rd read (Safekeep, for example) while others might open up well from rereading (Held potentially or Orbital). Just don’t know what to think, but I am very much enjoying the prize this year.

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I think Held will win. I would not be surprised or disappointed if that happened.

I finally got around to reading The Disappearance Boy and I can say that it will be on my top books of 2024! The characters reeled me in and never let go. So touching and poignant!

Good excuse to pick up some Tilted Axis Press books. Glad you mentioned them.

I'm very intrigued by The Centre but really they all sound interesting!

I think 'James' will win. Just because of what it represents. I honestly don't have any urge to read it though. I think Matar's 'My Friends' should have been on the shortlist. I enjoyed 'Creation Lake', though I see your point about it's strength tailing off somewhat. 'Stoneyard Devotional' is my personal favourite.

'Queer As Folklore' looks fantastic, I must grt hold of that. And thank you for mentioning Tilted Access are in need of sipport, I agree, they're a great publisher. Great watch as ever Bob, there's never a new video out from you that doesn't introduce me to something new - and I'm pretty clued up when it comes to books! ❤

Thank you for this video, Bob. ❤

Oh, and Neverland! Maybe I should just read everything you read

Hi Bob, all of today's books really drew me and I'm going to check out Tilted Axis Press now

Father Bob’s sermon. If you haven’t watched it, you haven’t lived 😅

Thanks for your review! I just finished this book in Dutch, and i was left wondering about the ending and the e-mail Ina sent to Todd near the end. I was just looking on multiple sites with book reviews but nobody mentioned it. I interpreted it the same way you did, but I wasn’t sure before. After hearing your review I am sure! And I also really loved this book :)

Morning Bob ☘️👋🍀📖📕📚☕️🤗

I've not heard of Tilted Access Press before but they sound super interesting. I'll definitely be checking their books out as well as the link to their campaign.

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James!

I discovered I own a copy of Held. I have books sent to me on subscription each month and sometimes lose sight of what I’ve been sent. Terrible thing to admit! I’m hoping for the Charlotte Wood along with all of reading Australia! I suspect it will be James. Unfortunately I was not as enchanted with James as everyone else seemed to be. Good read but not for me a great one. This is a great video Bob 🤗

I think you need to discuss the book and don’t worry about spoilers. It takes away from your review.

I was so surprised My Friends didn't make the shortlist! I was also surprised that they shortlisted both Held and Orbital. I thought it would be one or the other. (I hoped for Orbital but expected Held) The only one of these i haven't read yet is Creation Lake. I wasn't sure I wanted to, but I guess now I will 😂 I liked the Safe Keep, but I'm hoping for James or Stone Yard Devotional to take the win.

I’m in the homestretch of Safekeeping and really enjoying it. I was not quite ready for the lusty depth of the lovers, that made me blush a bit, but I’m also impressed at how well it’s done and that it describes succinctly something so outside my realm of understanding clearly and emphatically. What’s so striking is that of any book written in the 21st century that would capture the attention and heart of Edmund de Waal, it would be this book, as it mirrors so intently his own family experiences in the nonfiction book the Hare with Amber Eyes. Even down to the centrality of the weight of beauty, history and meaning in a ceramic shard, it touches on his other professional passion as one of the greatest living potters in the Art world today. Especially as chair, I can imagine him plucking this book out of the mix, championing it and his enthusiasm pulling the others along. This book is here and on these two lists, long and short, because he is part of the jury, I don’t know if this would have happened with another cohort. Yet to be clear, I do feel this is a case of cream rising to the top and it’s very much a worthy contender, much more so than Orbital even making the initial list, which I find to be fine, on the verge of mediocre. But, if I was writing a Booker trap book for Edmund de Waal, one could do no better than this. I do find Held head and shoulders above Orbital in their overlap. And while I’m also currently tucking into James, it’s most likely my candidate of choice for winner in lieu of my beloved My Friends, my front runner, being cut. For me it’s a fever dream of a book where time folds, reshuffles and overlaps on itself drilling down into a focus of these Deja vu precise moments of these characters that universally connects them across time and space in a melancholy heartbreak of experience. Perhaps, if there was a Booker book trap title aimed at myself (at least for my current state of mind) it might be this novel. In a way, the characters of Orbital seem to be experiencing something similar, but where its uniting and connecting the Held characters, it’s isolating and compartmentalism the Orbital characters, which leaves me cold. They are simultaneously having one of the most unique, transcendent, hyper real experiences that few people will ever experience in life, and yet they are cut off from each other and not sharing it, choosing to shut out others and experience it solitarily. By contrast in Held they are experiencing this moment, but are all universally connected and sharing it and experiencing it as one across time and space.

I’m in the homestretch of Safekeeping and really enjoying it. I was not quite ready for the lusty depth of the lovers, that made me blush a bit, but I’m also impressed at how well it’s done and that it describes succinctly something so outside my realm of understanding clearly and emphatically. What’s so striking is that of any book written in the 21st century that would capture the attention and heart of Edmund de Waal, it would be this book, as it mirrors so intently his own family experiences in the nonfiction book the Hare with Amber Eyes. Even down to the centrality of the weight of beauty, history and meaning in a ceramic shard, it touches on his other professional passion as one of the greatest living potters in the Art world today. Especially as chair, I can imagine him plucking this book out of the mix, championing it and his enthusiasm pulling the others along. This book is here and on these two lists, long and short, because he is part of the jury, I don’t know if this would have happened with another cohort. Yet to be clear, I do feel this is a case of cream rising to the top and it’s very much a worthy contender, much more so than Orbital even making the initial list, which I find to be fine, on the verge of mediocre. But, if I was writing a Booker trap book for Edmund de Waal, one could do no better than this. I do find Held head and shoulders above Orbital in their overlap. And while I’m also currently tucking into James, it’s most likely my candidate of choice for winner in lieu of my beloved My Friends, my front runner, being cut. For me it’s a fever dream of a book where time folds, reshuffles and overlaps on itself drilling down into a focus of these Deja vu precise moments of these characters that universally connects them across time and space in a melancholy heartbreak of experience. Perhaps, if there was a Booker book trap title aimed at myself (at least for my current state of mind) it might be this novel. In a way, the characters of Orbital seem to be experiencing something similar, but where its uniting and connecting the Held characters, it’s isolating and compartmentalism the Orbital characters, which leaves me cold. They are simultaneously having one of the most unique, transcendent, hyper real experiences that few people will ever experience in life, and yet they are cut off from each other and not sharing it, choosing to shut out others and experience it solitarily. By contrast in Held they are experiencing this moment, but are all universally connected and sharing it and experiencing it as one across time and space.

I’ve started listening to Creation Lake on audio. I’m experiencing it as satire/comedy but I don’t know if the author intended that? Held is confusing me. It’s coming across as a prose poem? James is the one that is most enjoyable.

Stone Yard Devotional FTW

Still reeling from My Friends not being on the shortlist. The three I’ve still to read Creation Lake James Held

A commentary on late stage capitalism. The lice was a perfect inclusion, how some humans live off of others. And Sadie is pessimistic because the people around her, no matter what they espouse, are pessimistic, power hungry, greedy, sexiest….In the middle of the book we are in a swanky bar and the power brokers from the left and the right show up. It’s all about the money and power and these men don’t believe anything they say. Still reading the book and enjoying it. Loving Bruno.

Omg! You liked The Centre?? Also, when a dog you're looking after does cuteness, we want to see it Robert. Move the camera a bit. Show us the dog. Always. Always move the camera a bit and show us the dog. Ok, thanks. Bye. 🐶🐕🦮🐕‍🦺 #bobshowingusdogs

I saw Chigozie Obioma speaking about the Fishermen at a writers’ festival which was just amazing. Very special. I still laugh at myself when I think that many years ago I wrote a review for my library about why David Galgut should have won the Booker for In a Strange Room. How presumptuous. Until very recently I could search and find it still on the library website. This is great Bob a wonderful project and review of some wonderful books.

loved this book

Thank you. You always have an interesting selection of books... with great commentary. ❤

Beloved just went on my list. Your description of it reminds me of Truth and beauty. While I was reading that book I was thinking about my friends, family and female relationships past and present.

We had to say goodbye to our cat Pebbles on September 12th. He’d been with us for over 4 years. I have only been able to read romance since. I can only cope with guaranteed happy endings for a while.

An African History of Africa sounds fascinating.

This is a beautiful novel. I also have plans to read Essex Serpent now, as this is my first Sarah Perry book. Great review!

I love your love for German literature! 💛 And I need this 1984 music book in my life! 😍

Ali Smith requested not to be submitted for the prize again? Do you know why? I tried to google it, but my google fu isn't strong enough. I was a bit ambivalent about Autumn, but read the rest of the seasonal books as well, and every book added to the others. They are freestanding, but so much better as a whole. Partway through Spring I realised that I was fully converted. Ducks, Newburyport, however 😂Let's just say that I enjoyed the mountain lion content. Although I read all thousand pages (over the course of three months) and something about it clearly compelled me to keep going. But at the end I was just relieved I was finished.

What an achievement! Congratulations! 🎉 And a very interesting list! Can't wait for more of this project to come.

Your Booker videos are always particularly fun but the dog cameos are off the charts wonderful.

I first read Paul auster when 'New York trilogy' came to me to be processed, I was working in a library at the time. I took it home and just thought it was a wonderful book. And then I read, sometime later, 'Invention of Solitude'. I really like that book as well but I haven't read Auster since. Odd. I will look for this one you mentioned..

Ferocious is a great word for Harvest. That and Elmet feel bold but very English. The Garden of Evening Mists is a personal favourite. And aren't we lucky to have a writer like Ali Smith in our time?

I agree you have to read ‘there there ‘ first , which takes from this booker longlisting. I felt Demon Copperhead did the opiate crisis so much better .

I didn't get the sense on any real level that Alva wanted to find out about her father more about her identity and just belonging.

great selection of books! I've read many of them and now I feel the urge to re read them! Great video!

Books that missed out sounds like a great topic!

I've read 8 of these and at least three of them stand out for me. Jim Crace's Harvest is one of those quiet bits of excellence. I loved 4321 and I think it suffer from being both long and late-career. It's better than both those handicaps suggest. Finally Autumn remains a spectacular feat of modern novel writing. It is both the start of an exceptional, relevant quartet of novels and a stunning standalone.

Have you ever read several books by one author in a short space of time? I did this with Elizabeth Strout this month . I was trying to catch up before Tell Me Everything was published. I ended up loving the books I read to catch up more than Tell Me Everything

Wonderful to hear someone rave about Ducks again - I genuinely missed the narrator of that book for days afterwards and almost started the whole thing again to be with her again. I have managed to read 6 of those and have some of the others still on the shelf so more to look forward to. I completely agree with you about Eimear McBride too. I thought Harvest was stunning - especially as I was aware of some of the background of the Enclosure Acts which forced people off the land across England and replaced them with sheep. And the climactic scene in Elmer I can still see - stunning! My vote for book that should have been listed (though we have no way of knowing if it was ever submitted) would be The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers 😉

I loved The Garden of Evening Mists ❤ 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World ❤ A Tale For The Time Being 🥰 Autumn 🍂 Elmet 🍂

Great selection Bob ❤