One of the joys of blogging was meeting lots of new people and getting very excited about books. Three years ago along with Paul Magrs, Nick Campbell and joined by Lesley Cookman I started on an exciting new venture co-founding a prize for LGBT literature of all kinds which eventually, after a small glitch with the initial name, was called The Green Carnation Prize. Well just over three years later the prize has changed a little bit yet the current team of judges, and one is an old ropey judge who refuses to leave, has brought you a very exciting longlist of thirteen books which are…
- Carry The One – Carol Anshaw (Penguin)
- Are You My Mother? – Alison Bechdel (Jonathan Cape)
- Ninety Days – Bill Clegg (Jonathan Cape)
- The Purple Shroud – Stella Duffy (Virago)
- Absolution – Patrick Flanery (Atlantic Books)
- A Perfectly Good Man – Patrick Gale (4th Estate)
- Scenes From An Early Life – Philip Hensher (4th Estate)
- Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice Cream Before He Stole Me Ma – Kerry Hudson (Chatto & Windus)
- Snake Ropes – Jess Richards (Sceptre)
- Hawthorn & Child – Keith Ridgway (Granta Books)
- Valentine Grey – Sandi Toksvig (Virago)
- Moffie – Andre Carl Van Der Merwe (Europa Editions)
- Jack Holmes and his Friend – Edmund White (Bloomsbury)
It is nice to be able to share at least the titles of some of the books that I have been secretly reading away over the past few months. Alas, I can’t tell you exactly what I thought of these thirteen because there is the short listing and the winning announcement to go, but it might be time to start telling you about some of the amazing books that didn’t make the longlist this year… because that is how good the submitted books were this year.
Always keen to get in on the act, a certain Oscar cat is now casting his eyes over the selected few and will be accompanying me in some re-reading. However I think I might have a week of reading just what I fancy first.
So what do you think of the list? Have you read any of them? What do you think might make the shortlist? Are there any you are surprised not to see? Are you going to give any of them a whirl? All thoughts, as always, most welcome.
Full details and thoughts from all the judges, and updates over the next few weeks, on the Green Carnation Prize can be found on the website.
Savidge Reads 