I’ve been looking forward to today because it’s hard to not talk about what you’re reading, especially when you’re enjoying it. These four books together are a lot shorter in length than last year’s list but the potential to stun is just as high. In this context word count truly doesn’t matter. So far I’ve read two and will now start to review them. I think we five bloggers are in for a very interesting conversation and I’m looking forward to seeing what the main judges think, too. The descriptions below are a mix of the official award copy we’ve been given and my own thoughts.

Andrew McMillan: Physical

A stunning début of raw and intimate poems about masculinity and male desire. Raw and urgent, these poems are hymns to the male body – to male friendship and male love – muscular, sometimes shocking, but always deeply moving. We are witness here to an almost religious celebration of the flesh: a flesh vital with the vulnerability of love and loss, to desire and its departure. In an extraordinary blend of McMillan’s own colloquial Yorkshire rhythms with a sinewy, metaphysical music and Thom Gunn’s torque and speed – ‘your kiss was deep enough to stand in’ – the poems in this first collection confront what it is to be a man and interrogate the very idea of masculinity. This is poetry where every instance of human connection, from the casual encounter to the intimate relationship, becomes redeemable and revelatory.

Andrew McMillan was born in South Yorkshire in 1988. This, his début collection, was published in 2015 by Jonathan Cape and was the first poetry collection to win the Guardian First Book Award. It also won a Somerset Maugham Award, an Eric Gregory Award, the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize for Best First Collection and a 2015 Northern Writers Award. It was shortlisted for numerous others including the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Costa Poetry Award. He currently lectures at Liverpool John Moores University and lives in Manchester.

One of the two I’ve read already – poetry collection; short – and there are some mind-blowing lines in it. McMillan has a special style, double meanings split across lines, that have a big impact on the whole.

Benjamin Wood: The Ecliptic

A rich and immersive story of love, obsession, creativity and disintegration. On a forested island off the coast of Istanbul stands Portmantle, a gated refuge for beleaguered artists. There, a curious assembly of painters, architects, writers and musicians strive to restore their faded talents. Elspeth ‘Knell’ Conroy is a celebrated painter who has lost faith in her ability and fled the dizzying art scene of 1960s London. On the island, she spends her nights locked in her blacked-out studio, testing a strange new pigment for her elusive masterpiece. But when a disaffected teenager named Fullerton arrives at the refuge, he disrupts its established routines. He is plagued by a recurring nightmare that steers him into danger, and Knell is left to pick apart the chilling mystery. Where did the boy come from, what is ‘The Ecliptic’, and how does it relate to their abandoned lives in England?

Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in North West England. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, Canada, which he attended with the support of a Commonwealth Scholarship. In 2012, Benjamin’s first novel The Bellwether Revivals was published. It was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize and le Prix du Roman Fnac, and has gone on to become a bestseller.

Jessie Greengrass: An Account Of The Decline Of The Great Auk, According To One Who Saw It

A highly original collection of stories from a startling new voice. The twelve stories range over centuries and across the world. There are stories about those who are lonely, or estranged, or out of time. There are hauntings, both literal and metaphorical; and acts of cruelty and neglect but also of penance. Some stories concern themselves with the present, and the mundane circumstances in which people find themselves, some stories concern themselves with the past.

Jessie Greengrass was born in 1982. She studied philosophy in Cambridge and London, where she now lives with her partner and child. Her shortlisted title won the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2016.

Max Porter: Grief Is The Thing With Feathers

About the book: Once upon a time there was a crow, a fairly famous Crow, who wanted nothing more than to care for a pair of motherless children. In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother’s sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow – antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. This extraordinary début, full of unexpected humour and emotional truth, marks the arrival of a thrilling and significant new talent.

Max Porter was born in 1981 and works in publishing. He lives in South London with his wife and children. This is his first book.

The second book I read; it’s incredibly experimental and there’s a fair amount going on but it all links up. Some knowledge of Ted Hughes’ work and the various debates regarding his relationship with Sylvia Plath is good to have prior to starting – a brief bit of Wikipedia reading should suffice. I’d heard a lot about Porter previously – he was at the Curious Arts Festival in July (I didn’t get to listen to him but there’s a photograph somewhere) and many have spoken of him since.

With two more books to read I can’t yet make a prediction – neither personal nor overall vote can be estimated – but if Greengrass’s and Wood’s books are anywhere near the same literary quality as McMillan and Porter, which is very likely, it’s going to be close.

Have you read any of the shortlisted books and what do you think of the selection?

Last time I said it was likely I would read more books in October than I had in September. And I did. I’m rather happy about that. I know on Twitter I’ve been saying I had 10 books to read – I did, just that I had a little more time than I’d thought for some of them and managed to finish some in September, so there isn’t 10 here. Anyway, this month has been one of if not the busiest, mentally, of my life. A ton of promotion for the first In Conversation event – as you may now know there will indeed be a second; we’ve Elizabeth Fremantle joining us in Southampton on 24th November – and a whole lot of reading. I feel like there was a reading slump involved at some point but this was one of those times where I absolutely had to read so it happened.

The Books

Non-Fiction

Dan Richards: The Beechwood Airship Interviews – Whilst studying for his MA, Dan decides to create a decorative zeppelin for his student union bar and as he starts the process he considers the relationship between artist and their space which leads him to interview various well-known people. A great book that defies categorisation.

Fiction

Alan Titchmarsh: Mr Gandy’s Grand Tour – When his wife dies, Tim decides to go on a few months’ long trip to continental Europe to take the sort of journey he’d always wanted to go on in his youth. There are a lot of devices and some repetition, but this is a lovely book full of summer. (My non-British readers may be interested to know that Titchmarsh is first and foremost a household name here due to his career as a TV gardener. His show was one of, if not the first, reality makeover series on our televisions.)

Jo Bartlett: Somebody Else’s Boy – When his wife dies in an accident at the theatre where she worked, Jack decides to move to the coastal town they both liked and in doing so he meets drama teacher, Nancy. Predictable in that good comfort-read way but a bit tell-rather-than-show.

Kate Walker: Indebted To Moreno – Rose left Nairo’s squat a decade ago, thinking he was a drug dealer, and when he shows up at her bridal store as a rich customer the real story starts to unravel. Including a sensitive look at anorexia, this is a pretty fair book.

Keith Stuart: A Boy Made Of Blocks – Alex has found relating to and dealing with his autistic son difficult and as the family reaches breaking point, young Sam discovers the video game, Minecraft, which Alex starts to find may be key to healing the rifts. A superb story with keen writing and a lot of heart, this book can be considered semi-autobiographical (the author is in the same position as main character, Alex) and is a lot of fun.

Kirsty Moseley: Worth Fighting For – When Ellie’s parents are involved in a car crash she leaves her new home in Britain to return to America and the boy who broke up with her three years before. Not a bad book but suffers from an overly oblivious heroine and a bit of info-dump.

Looking just at the books here, both The Beechwood Airship Interviews and A Boy Made Of Blocks were a joy to read. Stuart’s book finds me in a new situation: I’m aware that some of the references to Minecraft are not factually correct (which is odd when he’s a gamer by trade) but it’s such a wonderful book with an important message and lessons that I want to make it one of my ‘best of 2016′ books despite that. I’ll probably be thinking on it for a while longer. The Richards might make the list too, but I think one bent rule is enough for one year (to have two of Richards’ books would set a precedent).

Quotation Report

Getting beer in stock either for the babysitter or the kids is absolutely fine when you’re absolutely desperate for time away with your wife, or, at least, so thinks Matt from A Boy Made Of Blocks.

November’s looking pretty busy too!

How was your October?

You’ll relate to this, I’m sure, and I’d love to hear what’s on your own lists. I’ve many book series that technically, in a dubious sense, are on the go. In some cases I have all the books already waiting (in most cases these are the series I’m not so fond of; isn’t that always the way?), others I have half the count, and more others I’d have to purchase. (Having more to purchase/borrow can sometimes itself be a reason to pause reading. It’s the reason I never got around to finishing that series with the boy wizard and man who shall not be named… and now I’ve missed collecting the set in one design.)

Whilst looking at my shelves for an idea of what to photograph in order to have some stock photos ready, I noticed how many unfinished series I had. I picked out a number of them – limited to the last book I’ve finished per series – and split them into two groups.

As I looked at them all neatly stacked on the table, I noticed a pattern that confirms something I’ve known a long time: I love fantasy but don’t make it a priority. I would say fantasy is a favourite genre but it requires a mental investment that I find difficult, a particular attention made more important due to my wish to review, and it keeps me away. I suppose what I’m saying is I love fantasy but find it hard to review, and I don’t know why. It may have something to do with my fear that I’ll miss key concepts, something I’ve got over when it comes to literary fiction and historicals but not yet imaginary worlds. I’m a video game and 90s sci-fi TV show geek who lost her way and thus doesn’t know many references any more.

Series I’ll Likely Finish

Elizabeth Chadwick’s Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy

I’ve finished book one, The Summer Queen, and have The Winter Crown on the shelf. The first was excellent but there was that pesky factor of having to wait for the next book to be released that meant I lost track. I will get to it – I’m slowly, successfully, making my way through Chadwick’s backlist. And I thought it prudent to wait until she’s published the last book so a marathon can be a possibility.

Lian Hearn’s Tales Of The Otori series

‘Current’ book: Grass For His Pillow. I have the next two (of three) on my shelves. I’ve been reading this series almost as long as I’d been reading His Dark Materials before I finished it earlier this year… about 15 years, now. It’s an investment thing.

Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series

Book 2, Living Dead In Dallas. I have most of this series thanks to a heavy discount that reduced the first ten books – what was published at the time – to the price of one store-bought book. (British readers may be familiar with The Book People.) This isn’t my favourite series thus the time it’s taken so far, but I like it enough to feel fairly confident in saying it will happen.

David (and Leigh!) Eddings’ The Mallorean

Book 2, King Of The Murgos. (There seems to be a pattern with this second book thing; it might be worth exploring at some point.) I pick this series up when I want older fantasy and am happy to read something repetitive. In many ways this series is a rehash of the previous, The Belgariad, that features the same characters. My problem with this ‘reboot’, as it were, is the change in Ce’Nedra and the way that because she’s had a baby she’s been largely left out. I’m making slow progress.

Series I Like Won’t Finish

Lauren Kate’s Fallen quartet

Book 2: Torment. It was a torment finishing the first two books. I went along with my standard ‘second chance’ mode of reading. I could carry on but I can’t say that interests me and negative reviews for negative reviews’ sake – no thanks.

Anna Belfrage’s Scottish time travel series

The Prodigal Son, book three. Akin to Diana Galbadon’s epic series, I read this series for a few tours and had to turn down the next two due to prior commitments.

N K Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy

Book one, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. This book didn’t do it for me but I do plan to try another of Jemisins’ series.

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

Book seven, Wyrd Sisters. I’m going to continue this series but being realistic there are so many books involved that I doubt I’ll ever read them all. I love Pratchett but need to read him in stages. I very much admire Jessica’s journey and am experiencing the series vicariously through her reviews.

Anyway, question time: which series do you have on the go and which have you given up on?

I interrupt my regular posting schedule, which does not include Saturdays, to say the following:

I am on the official shadow panel for this year’s Young Writer Of The Year award together Simon Savidge, Kim Forrester, Naomi Frisby, and Eric Karl Anderson. We’ve known for a couple of weeks and can now reveal it. We can’t tell you who is on the shortlist at this point – look out for that announcement next week. I will be reviewing the books over the next month and will likely have some other bits and pieces of news to share here and on Twitter, too.

Annoucement on the official site.

© Photo:Gerry Walden/gwpics.com 2016

Thursday saw the first In Conversation event here in Southampton, hosted at The Notes Cafe. Dan Richards came down from Bath via Norwich – a very busy day that resulted in a likely miffed cat – and spoke to us about Climbing Days and The Beechwood Airship Interviews: how it was to be a female mountaineer in the early 20th century; the problems with climbing then as opposed to now; being greeted as the great-great-nephew of a climbing legend; interviewing popular artists about their work within their creative spaces.

With me on stage too, this post was never going to be like my other event write ups. It would have looked a little odd for me to have a notebook and pen, not least to be jumping off the stage to gets photographs… of one person and an empty chair, so I mollified myself with the occasional glance to check my live tweeter was indeed tweeting (he was but as we discovered later, he didn’t know about mentions/replies – this is why I was posting tweets the next morning) and rested assured that there was a professional photographer in the house.

© Photo:Gerry Walden/gwpics.com 2016

Faber sent us some letterpressed prints of Stanley Donwood’s book cover art, signed by both artist and Dan, and we had all three books on sale. It was lovely to see those I’d met before and those I’d met on Twitter; April Munday joined us (we met at last year’s RNA conference) as well as Paul Cheney who I now know, through Dan, and who travelled a fair distance all considered.

It was a lovely evening and we look forward to a second – on Thursday 24th November, Elizabeth Fremantle will be joining us, Facebook event page here. Do come if you can!

What’s the most recent literary event you’ve attended?