Blogging the Booker 11: Shortlist predictions & hopes

The shortlist for the 2010 Booker Prize is announced today (London's today, that is), so I thought it was a good time to provide a quick overview of my progress through the longlist.

The 13 books are (with the ones I've read in bold & including links to my review post):

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America
Emma Donoghue Room
Helen Dunmore The Betrayal
Damon Galgut In a Strange Room
Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question
Andrea Levy The Long Song
Tom McCarthy C
David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Lisa Moore February
Paul Murray Skippy Dies
Rose Tremain Trespass
Christos Tsiolkas The Slap
Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky

So, I've to date read eight of the thirteen, which I suppose isn't bad progress (given that my plan all along was to get through all 13 by the winner - not shortlist - announcement, which is in about a month). Of those eight, the ones I'd most like to make the five- or six-strong shortlist are:

Room
The Long Song
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Skippy Dies

I think - albeit with the obvious caveat that I've not read the remaining five - most of those are reasonably likely to make the shortlist. David Mitchell is probably safe, and I suspect Andrea Levy is too. Skippy Dies is a personal favourite, in part because it seems an unlikely Booker pick, but is actually really good. Comparing it to The Stars in the Bright Sky demonstrates the difference between a decent read and something worthy of a literary fiction award, in my opinion. Skippy Dies takes a fairly humdrum starting point and makes it great not only by featuring wonderful characterisation, but also by hinting at subtle but effective themes. The Stars in the Bright Sky, on the other hand, seems more like the inspiration for a fun but slightly shlocky tv mini-series (friends growing apart yet remaining bound together, misadventures on a holiday, drug references, one really annoying character, one really mysterious one).

So those are my hopes. Regardless of what happens with the five I've not read - and for all I know the entire shortlist will consist of those I haven't read yet - I'll try to press on through all 13 before early October. (I will prioritise those that get the nod today.)

Either way, I've enjoyed the process so far - I haven't yet hated anything completely, and have read at least two books I probably would've missed otherwise which I really enjoyed.

Hope you've enjoyed it, too, hypothetical reader/s! Has anyone got any predictions or hopes (for the Booker shortlist, not your life as a whole) of their own?

Blogging the Booker 2: Overview of the 2010 longlist

In this post, I'll quickly note what I know about each of the longlisted titles, and also outline my plan for the first few reviews...

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America

This came out in Australia ages ago, and I read it then. Will be the first book reviewed - stay tuned!

Emma Donoghue Room

I had never heard of either author or book previously, but have read some good reviews. Have it ordered from the good folk at The Book Depository, so hope to read & review it soon-ish.

Helen Dunmore The Betrayal

I believe this one is a sequel, or part of a series or something. That makes me less keen to read it, since I've (obviously) not read the book/s before it.

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room

Know nothing about it. Will track down some reviews.

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question

Another one I don't know much about, but apparently it's a comic novel. That could be promising.

Andrea Levy The Long Song

I read - & enjoyed - her previous book, Small Island, a few years ago. Will get to this at some point.

Tom McCarthy C

In the same order as Room, so another one I should be able to read/review soon. I enjoyed his first book, Remainder, although I didn't think it was the greatest thing ever, as some others did. Apparently this one is quite different - set in the early 20th century, I believe. (Sorry, Angie, but at least you're warned!)

David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

One of my favourite living authors, as mentioned in the previous post. I read this a couple of months ago, and loved it.

Lisa Moore February

Don't know anything about it.

Paul Murray Skippy Dies

This one sounds interesting - a comic boarding-school novel, that's so far been reviewed quite well. I just picked up a copy from the local library, so will get to it soon too. (It's pretty long, though.)

Rose Tremain Trespass

Know nothing about it.

Christos Tsiolkas The Slap

Quite the rage a little while ago here in Australia, but it passed me by. That said, have just got it from the library as well.

Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky

Another one that is a blank slate for me.



Okay, so. I've read two already, have two sitting near me courtesy of middle-class welfare, and another two on their way to me. That's a good start. The shortlist is announced on 7 September, and the winner on 12 October.

Expect a review of the Carey early next week, and the Mitchell later in the week. By that point, I hope to have also read one of the others from today's library visit.

Onwards & upwards! I look forward to doing this, but also hope that you, dear readers, chip in in the comments section...

ED6114 wrap-up

One final* post on the ED6114 - Using ICT in a Tertiary Setting course for which this blog was originally hand-stitched. (After this week, I will continue to post, but will broaden my scope from university teaching issues to all sorts of things that interest me. Which does include university teaching issues, though, I'm afraid.) I found the whole course fascinating, largely because there was a strong current of discussion throughout it about social & educational consequences of new technologies. Rather than just talking about how to use technologies beyond the blackboard, we considered what that use might signify.

Plus, I was lucky enough to do the course with a bunch of people from different backgrounds to me. Different courses lead to different needs from/uses of technology, just as surely as they require different teaching strategies. Who knew, for instance, that medicine students have to carry around several bricks' worth of notes for the entire length of their course? Aline touches on some matters for her students in that post that would never have occured to me regarding my own students, and that's one thing I was able to get out of ED6114.

Similarly, Ben scored almost the exact opposite of me on the VARK questionnaire (which may go some way to explaining why he's a proper doctor, and I'm only a fake one...). As he points out, though, not only do we need to avoid adopting a one-size-fits-all style of teaching, assuming that all our students learn in the same way (as I noted the other day), we also need to avoid the assumption that students will learn in the same way that we do.

One of my teaching evaluations from semester one told me that I "bored [one ungrateful student] to tears". So perhaps I need to remember that not everyone finds my teaching style as interesting as I do...

The final piece of assessment in ED6114 was to develop a course that would draw heavily on ICT. I made a course called 'Politics & the Media' more or less from scratch (a subject of that name does exist at Notre Dame, although I have no idea what it includes, and I also did tutor in Ian Ward's course on the topic at UQ for a few semesters - but this course was entirely of my own invention). I'm actually quite proud of it - I think it would be an interesting course to teach or study. That said, I do wonder if the ICT components were a bit tacked-on. They could work well, I think, but parts of them could work just as well in more traditional subject-delivery modes. (I'm being a little vague here, I know, but that's in case I ever do spend more time on this plan - don't want other people to pinch my brilliant ideas**.)

Anyway, it was all very interesting. And now that I have myself an Ipad, I've been trying desperately to think of ways of including such devices in my teaching. Because, well, it's pretty much the coolest thing ever...


* for now
** yes, I realise that the readership of this blog, such as it is, isn't terribly likely to suddenly start teaching university-level Politics & the Media.