Revealing the Women’s Prize Fiction 2024 long list (i'm surprised!)

i have got to show you what i am seeing. i'm  seeing this. hello, that's you. and down here.. the biggest box of books you ever saw. if you are  new to this channel you're about to become part of an age-old tradition of unboxing the women's  prize for fiction long list. we unboxed the long list for the new non-fiction prize very recently  so you can go and watch that video after you've watched this one. but this one is the.. this one  is the big tradition for me. this one's the big one. and most

years i try and read all of the  long list and predict. and sometimes i'm even right about it… i know. um… the the box only  arrived today. and today for you is yesterday. so i am going to have to film this video without  very many cuts. we don't have much time to get it up. so grab a big mug of tea is what i'm saying,  because this is about to be very much like you're in the womb… in the womb with me? this is what  happens. you're about to become covered in the mess that is my brain. uh.. not

in the womb. in  the room with me. and we're going to unbox these books and you're going to get my first impressions  and then i'm going to tell you which ones i'm most excited about. if you haven't read any books from  the women's prize fiction long list before can i tell you that for the past like five years running  i have always found some of my best reads of the year on this long list. it's genuinely just such  a superstar solid recommendation pool and i often find unexpected books. if you'

ve watched before  and you remember my ‘pod’ assumption versus my ‘pod’ by laline paul outcome um.. you'll know  that i definitely judge books by their covers. but sometimes i'm wrong. and the prize is a way  that really draws attention for me to those books that i genuinely would have missed out on and  would have stopped changing my life for the better. a big disaster, i think you'll agree.  so uh.. without further ado i'm going to unbox these books. i haven't looked. i just made sure  that cr

aig opened the box and counted them so we definitely have them all. oh, do i have any last  minute predictions? um… i think there's going to be an anne enright. uh.. i think there is going to  be a zade smith. and i think that there is going to be a book called ‘yellow face’ on on the  list. but uh.. i don't.. i've only heard very mixed reviews of that so i've only heard people  say they hope it's not on the long list but it might be. so.. okay.. uh.. let's just go uh..  and and see… oh… oh i kn

ow. my last prediction is the julia book. um… which is a retelling of  ‘1984’ from julia's perspective. i think that's going to be on there and i really hope it is cuz  i really freaking want to read it. okay, let's go. are you ready? hold your noses. what's going to  be the first.. okay. the first one is just a lot of wrapping paper. stop it. making sure the books  are good. okay. i'm trying not to look down at the big pile and just going to pull them out. okay.  oh, it's a hard back. a lot of

them are going to be hard backs i think. oooh. it's a good cover.  okay. this is called ‘brotherless night’ and what is.. what is this? oh um brit.. brit.. britt  bernette who wrote ‘the vanishing half’ which i loved uh.. she likes it. so that's cool. that's  what i'm seeing on the end. and um… danielle evans who is again a very very good writer. so that's  good. it actually goes with my outfit. not to be completely shallow but just saying. i think  this one's already coming in. let is… let's se

e what it's about. oh… from the women's prize  longlisted author. does that… is that because she's been longlisted before? or is that because  they know that she's going to be longlisted so they've printed it in? either way… i respect the  hustle. um… ‘16-year-old sashi wants to become a doctor but over the next decade, while a vicious  civil war tears through her hometown of jaffna her dream spins off course as she sees those around  her, including her four beloved brothers and their friend, ge

t swept up in violent political  ideologies and their consequences. desperate to act she must ask herself: is it possible to  move through life without doing harm?’ okay. feels coming of age-y. there is a hook there but  not much. there's actually not that much to go on from that blurb. so i don't really know how i feel  about this one. i am really impressed by the cover though. and i think the title is really strong.  like ‘brotherless night’. um… i love titles that tell a story in two words. t

hat already tells a  little bit of a story so.. okay. i'm holding out hope. that is the first one, let's have a sip  of tea cuz we've got a long way to go. see if you can pick one of the next books you're going to  read from this list as well. ‘and then she fell’. another pretty good cover. let's see what the back  says. okay um.. ‘yes, this is technically called ‘the creation story’ but it's not the beginning.  ‘and then she fell’ as an urgent and unflinching look at spiritual inheritance, woma

nhood denia,l  false allyship, which speeds into an unpredictable and surreal climax.’ so this is an eve story is  what you're telling me. ‘on the surface alice is exactly what she should be in life. she's given  birth to a baby girl. her ever charming husband, an academic whose era of study is conveniently  her own mohawk culture, is nothing but supportive and they've moved into a home in a wealthy  neighborhood. but strange things have started happening. alice finds herself hearing voices  she

can't explain and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her  neighbors passive aggression begins to morph into something far more threatening.’ this sounds dark.  really interesting. so she's a canadian indigenous author it looks like from ontario. and this feels  like a kind of uh.. underlying threatening dark domestic novel with some haunting.. maybe? that's  my that's just my impression. and with some social commentary on the idea of the fallen woman and  spi

rituality. i'm just guessing. okay. right. don't look, leena. stop it. i'm such a perve when  it comes to books. stop looking at them. okay, next one. ooh.. um.. kate grenville. ‘restless  dolly maunder’. okay. ‘dolly is born at the end of the 19th century when society's long locked doors  are just starting to creak ajar for a determined woman. growing up in a poor farming family in  new rural wales, dolly spends her life doggedly pushing all those doors. a husband and two  children do not deter

her from her search for love and independence.’ i don't really think that tells  us like anything. and it's a historical novel, which i'm not always… unless there’s a hook for a  historical novel or it's a retelling of somebody's actual life like… i'm not… that's the one i'm  first like… the first one i'm feeling a bit like… i don't… i don't know about. okay, next one. oh,  this a thin one. karen lord ‘the blue beautiful world’. climate change. oh, here we go. okay.. i  was actually surprised t

hat there wasn't a climate change um.. book on the nonfiction list i don't  think. there was a few nature related ones that mentioned climate but there wasn't one… so this  is interesting. i hate the cover…like that is.. is that not like um.. year 9 powerpoint presentation  worthy cover? hate that. but i'm intrigued so let's… let's read on. ‘climate change has  radically transformed the planet. meanwhile earth is being observed from afar by other civilians  and now they're ready to meet us. vyin

g to prepare humanity for first contact to a group of dreamers  and change makers, including peter hendricks, the genius inventor behind the most advanced vr  tech. carissa, a beloved celebrity icon with a passion for humanitarian work and kona, a member  of a global council of young people drafted to reimagine the relationship between humankind and  alien societies. and they may have an unexpected secret weapon, owen: a pop star mega star whose  ability to connect with his adoring fans is more

than charisma. his hidden talent could be the key  to uniting earth as it looks towards the stars.’ okay, this sounds absolutely wacky but i am  actually kind of here for it. this sounds so weird and also kind of interrogating fame as well as  aliens. if it's too sci-fi… i'm not a huge sci-fi reader. but if it's kind of character-driven..  literary like.. i don't know uh… not too much going into the way the world's built and stuff..  uh.. i'm interested. i'm open to experimenting. a wild card bu

t i kind of love it. okay. what  is next. oh… our first paperback. what have we got? ‘the maiden’ by kate foster. i don't love the  cover. i don't like these kinds of drawings. okay, let's see. edinburgh, interesting. october, i have  no opinion on what month a book is set in. 1679, okay i'm actually kind of interested. ‘christian  nimo is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover, james forester. news of her  impending trial is splashed across the broad sides with headlines that leave l

ittle  room for doubt. adulterous whore, murderous. only a year ago lady christian was leading a life  of privilege and married respectability. what led her to…’ i'm already bored. i'm not sure. i'm  not sure everyone. i don't know. i'm… i think it's a little bit like… uh.. ‘alias grace’ but  doesn't have the hook. i'm not sure. it feels a bit cliched. i don't know. i don't know. i don't  know. okay, next one. ‘river east river west.’ shanghai 2007. i love that everyone just tells you  right at

the beginning like… the location… i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.  i personally think it's a bad thing because i don't care about where something's set as the  first… like it's not the most important thing for me. and it also isn't the most important thing  for me like… what date it’s set. so you often run the risk of putting somebody off if you tell  them that first. like it just gives you… like it just gives you an idea in your head like whatever  your previous preconceptio

ns are… like a time… a location and a date put something in a box that  i don't think it needs to be put in. that's my personal opinion about blurs. i just think.. why  is that the first … it could be the second thing. it could be the third thing. i'm not saying don't  put it in the blurb, but it's not relevant. it's not going to draw people in but like… why is  it always the first thing? anyway.. ‘shanghai, 2007. feeling betrayed by her american mother's  engagement to their rich landlord lu fa

ng, 14-year-old alva begins plotting her way out.  but the american school in shanghai, a potential ticket to study abroad, turns out to be more  exclusive and seedier than she imagined.’ oh, and then there's another setting. okay. ‘quing  dao, 1985. lu fang newly married with a young son is a lowly shipping clerk, though he aspires  to a bright future he is one of many casualties of harsh political reforms. then china opens its  doors to foreigners in capital and lu fang meets a woman who makes

him question what he should  settle for. decades later will he and his restless stepdaughter find common ground?’ i actually  really like that concept. so it's about… so if i'm getting this right it's about a girl who hates  her stepfather and then it's the story of how her stepfather met her mother and who he was before he  was who he is in the present day. and them finding common ground to like each other. i actually…  i'm intrigued… that's also very intriguing. that's going on my intrigued p

ile. i'm interested  to hear more about that. that's… that's what i've going to say about that. okay, next one. let's go.  we're steaming through these. or it feels like we are. you probably feel like you've been here for a  freaking million years. ‘ordinary human failings’. that is a good title isn't it? this is the cover.  black and white. bright orange spine. what do we have here? ‘when we look behind the headlines,  everyone has a story to tell. it's 1990 in london and tom hargreaves has it

all. a burgeoning  career as a reporter, a fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for ‘the peasants’... ordinary  people. his readers. easy tabloid fodder. his star looks set to rise when he stumbles across  a scoop, a dead child in a london estate, grieving parents loved across the neighborhood  and the finger of a suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of irish immigrants and bad  apples, the greens. at their heart sits carmel, a beautiful, otherworldly, broken and once  destined for a futu

re beyond her circumstances until life and love got in the way.’ this is  very me… this is a very messy blurb. what is happening? okay. ‘crushed by’… do we need to know  all of this? ‘crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment there's nowhere for her to go  and no chance of escape. now with the police closing in on the suspect and the tabloids  hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped their  family for so long for generations.’ okay so it's abo

ut uh.. a uh.. tabloid journalist who is  crunching down on suspects in a murder case. uh.. who are a family of irish immigrants who i'm  assuming have been treated badly by everybody else because that is 1990 london probably. sounds  okay. i… i didn't love the blurb but i do think the concept's interesting and the cover's really  good, which i'm not supposed to be judging it on but it is a good cover. um… so i'm.. i'm okay. so  far i haven't found anything that i'm like… yes, come on. so i'm re

ally hoping it's in here. let's  keep going. let's keep going. another hard back. ooh.. ‘night bloom’. looks like this. ‘growing  up in the same ghanian town, salassi and acorfa are more than just cousins, they’re best friends.  the girls share everything but as they enter their teens salassi begins to change, constructing a  wall around herself designed to keep everyone away.’ etc etc ‘it will take many years for  their past to cross again. acorfa now works in international development as she n

avigates the  challenges of life as a black woman and mother in the US. salassi is a successful restauranter  running the hottest spot in acra. and when an incident at her restaurant puts salassi in danger  the women must overcome their differences.’ okay, so it's about um… two friends that are cousins  that grow apart and then their lives cross again and they have to work out whether they would like  to support each other. and i'm assuming there are some twists and turns. again, it doesn't soun

d  bad. but there's no… there's no like big intrigue plot point there that i'm like: oh, how would  one resolve that? or… that's something i've never read about before. so i'm… again, i'm interested.  i'm not uninterested. But uh… not so sure. okay, let's keep going. ooh.. a short one. here she  is. oh… i like this cover. look at this cover. that's cool isn't it? it looks like one of those  um… pictures you look at with the illusion where it's a building that's the right way up and upside  down

at the same time. okay, please let this one be interesting. okay, it's called ‘hangman’.  let's have a little look. ‘a man returns home to subsaharan africa after 26 years living in  exile in america. when he arrives he finds that he doesn't recognize the country or anyone in it.  thankfully, someone at the airport knows him. a man who calls him brother. as they travel to this  man's house the purpose of his visit comes into focus. he is here to find his real brother who  is dying. hangman is a

tragicomic journey through homecoming and loss. it's hilarious and twisted  odyssey, peopled by phantoms and tricksters, aid workers and traffic drivers.’ okay so this  feels like more of a kind of small story. i do.. i am intrigued. like why this… he… this man has  turned up at the airport that calls him brother but he has no idea. and he's on it… he's trying  to seek his brother. i'm.. i am.. i'm in… i'm.. i'm intrigued. uh… and it's short and i think  the description of it being a tragicomic

as well makes me feel like hopeful that it’s going to  be something a bit different. um… so i'm feeling good about that one actually. i think that might  going to be going on the feeling good pile. and i'm feeling… a paperback. ‘Soldier sailor’. I saw  some people predict that this would be in here so it's interesting to see that it is. well done to  those people who predicted that it would be. uh.. claire kilroy. i've heard of her before. i think  she is a name. ‘in her wildly acclaimed new nov

el, claire kilroy creates an unforgettable heroin  whose fierce love for her young son clashes with the seismic change to her own identity.  as her marriage strains and she struggles with the questions of autonomy, creativity and the  passing of time an old friend makes a welcome return. but can he really offer a lifeline to the  woman she used to be?’ interesting. i think i'm interested in the idea of like.. the.. somebody's  relationship to motherhood changing as they change as a person. and e

specially how it relates to  their creativity. i'm interested. i think that i also really like the uh.. title. the kind of  soldier sailor tinker spy… am i making that up? anyway… i don't… i like the kind of like aspect  of that. i don't know why. it's just a… it's an intriguing title. so we'll see. um… i think it  all depends on how it's written and great.. good cover again. i really like illustrated covers so  that one was nice. but it's nothing that has faces on. don't know why i just.. i can

't think of the  last time i liked a cover that had a face on it. anyway, moving on from my prejudices. oh. i was...  hello! ‘enter ghost’ um… i was going to buy this. i saw it in a book shop when i was in sheffield  a few weeks ago and i almost bought it. now it's here. it's found me again. you know when you have  a book that you're like… i know you! we've been at the same party before. okay, let's see. but i  think.. i think i'm going to read this one already because i've already read this blu

rb at some point  and obviously it made me almost buy it. so let's see. ‘after years away from her family's homeland  and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress sonia returns to hafia to visit her older sister  hanen. while hanen made her life here commuting to tel aviv to teach at the university, sonia  reigns in london to focus on her acting career and now desolute marriage. on her return she  finds her relationship to palestine is fragile, both bone deep and new.’ ah, this is why i wa

nted  to read it. ‘when sonia meets the charismatic and candid mariam, a local director, she joins a  production of hamlet in the west bank. soon sonia is rehearsing gertrud's line in a classical  arabic with a dedicated group of men, who in spite of their competing egos and priorities all want to  bring shakespeare to that side of the wall.’ ooh.. um.. combination of something set in palestine  which i'm incredibly um.. interested in reading about at the moment for obvious reasons. and that  it

's um.. a shakespeare like… people adapting shakespeare and looking at it in their context. i  am kind of very much in. this is the most positive i’ve felt about a book so far actually. this is  going straight to the top. oh yes. and a beautiful cover as well. i really like that. okay. okay  good. good. good. let's keep going. what could be next? i'm going to fall off. i need to hold on to  something. i'm going to fall off. getting to the bottom of the box. okay. ‘eight lives of a century  old t

rickster’... ‘slave, escape artist murderer, terrorist, spy, lover, mother’ are the subtext  words on this cover and it's foiled. haven't had any foil yet. people are skimping. where's my  foil, publishers? um.. um yeah. really nice cover. i'm intrigued. let's go. ‘at the golden sunset  retirement home’ old people…? i love a book about old people. ‘at the golden sunset retirement home  it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. so when elderly miss monk first begins to unspool  her memor

ies, the obituarist listening to her is skeptical. stories of captivity, friendship,  murder, adventure, assumed identities and spying. the stories take place in world war 2 indonesia in  bersian during the korean war, in the cold war in china, the stories are so colorful and various,  at times so unbelievable that they can can't all surely belong to the same woman, can they? as  playful and thoughtful as this is compelling, as brutal and harrowing as it is arkingly poignant  and tender, this is

a novel about love, war, deceit, betrayal. about identity, storytelling  and the trickery required for survival.’ i'm interested in the concept. i hate when blurbs just  list so many many things that a book… i'm like it can't be all of those things. stop it. or don't  overpromise because it makes me feel like you're going to underdeliver. um … when otherwise i'd  just have been like happily excited to stumble upon all of those things in one book. um… but i  really like that it's told from an ol

d person's perspective. and it is about um.. somebody who  has loads of different unbelievable lives. so i… i'm.. i'm.. very very interesting. next… what we  going to go for? there's lots of books that aren't turning up in this list so far. so i'm kind of  surprised by the absence but also excited by the absence because it means that lots of those books,  while i haven't read them, are very critically acclaimed. so if these books are by the judges  measure better than those books then i'm very v

ery interested. pam williams, ‘a trace of sun’. what  is this cover? why is it here? stop doing this to me. oh it looks like a s**t postcard. okay,  right. clear your mind leena. we're not thinking about that. we're thinking about the blurb. trust  the process. ‘don't go, mammy please. stuttered words filled her ears, sent frisen’s of guilt  through her as she bent over him. held him to her thumping chest. tears sliding from her face  to his. rahif is left behind in granada when his mother silia

follows her husband to england to  search for a better life. when they're finally reunited 7 years later they are strangers and the  emotional impact of the separation leads to the events that rip their family apart. as they try to  move forward with their lives, his mother's secret will make rahif question all he has ever known  of who he is.’ really doesn't tell me very much. i can't go off that. that's not a blurb. stop  it. that doesn't tell you what h… like what's it.. no… i don't want to…

no. i don't think…  i don't know. it's not a whole blurb. it feels like that isn't enough for me to go off to decide  whether i want to read this or not. then.. there must be more intrigue in the book than that. it's  long. uh… so i don't know if it's just the way the blurbs written. but like.. that's not enough. i..  i don't… of course if you're separated from your parent for seven years like they're going to feel  like strangers at first. um.. and there's got to be an explanation as to why th

ey did it. although  i can kind of guess the explanation because they kind of say what the explanation is on the back.  so there's just no intrigue in there for me. i'm not sure. not sure about the cover. uh.. i don't  know if i'll get to that one. we'll see. shade, leena. Wow, you get so grumpy in your old age.  have a cup of… have a sip of tea for god's sake. okay, next… oh.. i don't know how many we've  got to go now, i haven't been counting. oh, okay. this is the one that a lot of people  pr

edicted would be in there. anne enright, who has won the booker before. i think she's won  the women's prize before potentially. she's a very nice woman. i've interviewed her i think at least  once, maybe twice. um.. she's very talented. she's very very well known. not surprised she's on the  list. i think when somebody is shortlisted or wins they're automatically re-entered into the prize  as well. so there's that. um… so this is is called ‘the wren, the wren’. ‘carmel has been…’ another  carme

l, that's two characters in books both called carmel. ‘...has been alone her whole life. the  baby knew this. they looked at each other and all of time was there. the baby knew how vast her  mother's loneliness had been. carmel’s daughter, funny brave and much loved, is a young woman  with adventure on her mind. as she sets out into the world she finds her family history  hard to escape. for her mother carmel, nel's leaving home opens space in her heart where the  turmoil of a lifetime begins to

churn and across the generation falls the long shadow of carmel's  famous father, an irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions. this is a meditation on love.  spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or genetic. a generational saga that traces the inheritance  not just of trauma but also of wonder. this is a testament to the glorious resilience of women  in the face of promises, false and true.’ that is how you write a blurb. that is a good.. i like  that. i'm.. again it's a very simple premis

e so it's really hard to say like… oh, i'm excited to  read it. because there's really not much to go on again. um.. in summary.. a woman who is lonely  has a child and she loves her very much. and then the child grows up and leaves home and leaves a  space in her heart. and while she has left home she reflects on the history of her family which  is what anyone would do and everybody does do when they leave home. so i don't… sorry.. i do..  i'm sure this is really good because anne enright is a

very talented writer and i might give it a  dip in anyway to see how it's written. but like.. again.. i think maybe this is a year of form over  plot, because these books must be really good but plot-wise i'm not getting like.. really intriguing  vibes. so they must just be… all be really really well written. okay, next. no, actually. i can't  put that on that pile. that's got to go over here. it's not quite in the intrigue pile. sorry. sorry  everybody. okay, i think it's the second to last. ‘w

estern lane’. a short one. oh, nice thick pages.  and it was shortlisted for the booker prize last year. so again that's interesting. where's the  blurb? hello? is the blurb here? did you miss the blurb? what's going on? god damn it guys.  there's no blurb. i'm not kidding, there's only quotes. i.. i'm just.. i'm going to google this  but i shouldn't have to google this. this is not… guys.. get it together. i see this occasionally  in books in bookshops and i think that's messy. obviously it was

n't a priority book. if this has  already been a booker shortlisted book, somebody's reprinted this and thought: yeah, everything  looks good with this. we'll go to print. wtf, anyway. okay, here we go. ‘11-year-old gopi has  been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket.’ oh, this is the one about  sport that everybody was talking about. i think i would recognize the… yeah i recognize the  hard back cover. ‘when her mother dies her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training

regime  and the game becomes her world. slowly she grows apart from her sisters, her life is reduced to the  sport guided by its rhythm, the serve, the volley the drive, the shot and its echo. but on the court  she is not alone. she is with her pa. she is with ghed, a 13-year-old boy with his own formidable  talent. she is with the players who have come before her. she is in awe.’ okay, i'm actually  thankfully intrigued. considering my ill wishes towards this book with no blurb. um… i really l

ike  books about people who are really focused on their like uh.. skill or talent or career. whatever  it is. like.. i'm fascinated… like my favorite one i think is by min kim called ‘gone’ about a  woman who's obsessed with playing violin. and uh.. i.. i like those kind of things. so actually,  even though it's a book about sport i'm going to reach inside myself and remember the girl who  loves ‘eat, sweat, play’ and books like that. anna kessle has taught me not to be prejudiced against  this.

and i actually think that this is going to be on my to read list because it's short and it  sounds really intriguing from the way it's told and also i think that's… why do i need to have  three reasons to read it? i think i'm interested. okay. cool. i think this is the last book. okay,  let's see. oh, a pink one to end. oh and look, on the back it tells me what the book's about.  ‘in defense of the act’ by effie black. oh, we've got a bookmark. ‘are we more like a coffee  bean, a carrot or an e

gg? what happens to us when we are boiled in the trials and tribulations  of life? jessica miller is fascinated by the somewhat perplexing tendency of humans to end  their own lives, but she secretly believes such an act may not be that bad after all. at least  she did. jessica is coming to terms with her own relationships and reflecting on what it means to  be queer when a single event throws everything she once believed into doubt. can she still defend the  act?’ okay, hot topic. oh, what is t

his font? we were doing so well. sorry, what the hell is going  on at number 10? well that's very upsetting. i was about to say… concept… hot topic. very daring and  interesting. um… first line of the blurb we win. ‘are we more like a coffee bean, a carrot or  an egg?’ thank you for some originality. i'm excited. the first quote on the back indicates  that it's about a death obsessed scientist, jess, as well so i like that description as well. it's  all sounding very intriguing. but unfortunatel

y i am going to have to get the ebook or the audio  book or something because that font is hurting my eyes. okay, interesting. let me tell you the  books that i am most excited to read. i think we know the reasons i'm not excited to read some of  the other ones. maybe i'll get to them, maybe i won't. but let's… i'll tell you what's going to be  on my nightstand. these are the six that are going to be on my nightstand. if uh.. i'm right and this  is actually the short list i will be so impressed.

and a little disturbed. um… but let me tell you  just run through which ones i'm most excited about. ‘the blue beautiful world’. weirdest blurb.  wins a place in my heart automatically. so weird i'm excited. ‘enter ghost’. um.. an incredibly  important place to read about right now and also a twist on that narrative and intrigue in like..  performing ‘hamlet’ there. so full marks. and also definitely.. i just think this is going to be  good because i was already attracted to it when we met each

other by chance in a bookshop. um…  this one ‘hangman’. oh, problem. don't actually remember what it's about. maybe that means i'm  not as excited about it as i thought. oh, yeah. this is the guy who returns to subsaharan africa  and uh.. is trying to find his relative but people know him and he doesn't know why. intriguing. um..  ‘the seven lives of a century old trickster’. uh.. intrigued by this again because it's the looking  back at somebody's life and how exciting it is and told from an o

ld person's perspective. it.. it  has a sh.. i can already tell it has a shape to the story and i like that. that feels like a good  place to go into knowing the shape of the story and being intrigued by that and like as a reader  being in a kind of semi contract about that. so… interesting. western lane, which we did work out  what the blurb was about and i'm excited. yeah… again i will.. i’m excited about that one. and  then ‘in defense of the act’ looks controversial. i think this is like an

indie press. i don't  recognize the name of this press. um… so again really interested to see how original this is.  it feels like could be quite original. um.. but we have to see. um… if you haven't watched my  women's prize videos before, i am of the opinion that for something to win.. to not just be like  yes, very good book, you're good at writing. this is worthwhile reading. but to win, i think the  prerequisite has to be that it has to to be either doing an old thing but really well. so li

ke.. in  the tradition of other writers but like either doing it better or just pulling off something  that's really hard to pull off. um.. something like a quiet novel but just written really  thoroughly well in a way that's more immersive than any other book. like those kinds of things.  um… or it has to be something really feeling new. like i haven't read it before. like it's something  that's really trying to invent. or uh.. riff off what's been done before. uh.. which again is kind  of hard

to pull off cuz there's so many freaking books in the world. i've read a small fraction of  it and i'm like a book addict. so who.. it's.. it is hard um.. and i'm hoping that at least one of  these can do that for me. um.. i'm excited to dip in. i would love to hear in the comments which  books you uh.. might pick up or are most excited to look at. or ones that you would pick up if you  did have time cuz i know not everybody makes as much time to read as me. um.. thank you so much  to the women

prize for sending me these books as you do every year. it's very generous of you and  it means that i can get the video up as the long list is announced. the short list is going to be  announced at the end of april, i believe. um.. and then the uh.. winner is announced in june.  so if you want to read along, those are your deadlines. thank you so much for watching. uh..  this video is made possible by the gumption club who tip me per video to make sure these videos  keep happening. and i'm also

going to be starting a women's prize group chat on the patreon app for  patrons. so if you would like to read along with other people who are reading the women's prize,  join the patreon. you can do that there. thank you so much for watching. now piss off, it's  time for me to start reading. frog snog out.