#2023 longlist

[alexsfictionaddiction]

The Women’s Prize For Fiction 2023 Longlist Is Here!

I’m pretty sure that anyone who was reading my blog around this time last year will know that I follow the Women’s Prize for Fiction very closely. In fact, it’s the only book prize that I ever want to make the effort to read as much of the longlist as I can. So, this time of year is like bookish Christmas to me and I have been SO excited over the last couple of weeks during the build-up to this announcement. 

For those of you who don’t follow it, the Women’s Prize for Fiction is an annual book prize given to a book written in English by a woman over the last year. The eligibility criteria is as follows:

It must be a full-length novel (no short story collections or novellas).

It must have been originally written in English (no translations).

It must have been published in the UK between 1st April of the year before the prize and 31st March of the year of the prize (so, this year’s eligibility period was between 1st April 2022 and 31st March 2023).

So, here is this year’s longlist!

I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel. Published by Rough Trade Books on 9th June 2022. Pod by Laline Paull. Published by Corsair on 7th April 2022. The Dog of the North by Elizabeth McKenzie. Published by 4th Estate on 7th March 2023. Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks. Published by Vintage on 2nd March 2023. Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova. Published by Atlantic Books on 7th July 2022. Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo. Published by Vintage on 7th April 2022. The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff. Published by Allen & Unwin on 2nd March 2023. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. Published by Tinder Press on 30th August 2022. Homesick by Jennifer Croft. Published by Charco Press on 23rd August 2022. Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh. Published by Penguin on 2nd March 2023. Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris. Published by Duckworth on 5th May 2022. Trespasses by Louise Kennedy. Published by Bloomsbury on 14th April 2022. Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow. Published by John Murray on 7th April 2022. Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes. Published by Mantle on 15th September 2022. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Published by Faber and Faber on 18th October 2022.

I’ve watched a lot of prediction videos and I was pretty sure I had a good idea of what books we’d see on this list. Having just watched the official announcement of the 16 books on the longlist, I am FLABBERGASTED at how wrong everyone was! 

Demon Copperhead is the only one I’ve already read and it definitely deserves to be there. Cursed Bread, Fire Rush and The Bandit Queens are on my TBR for this month anyway. I have copies of Trespasses, Stone Blind, The Marriage Portrait, Memphis, Glory, Pod and I’m A Fan, so will be getting to them as soon as I can. There are quite a few books on here that I’ve never even heard of, so that’s very exciting!

While I am quite sad not to see some of the popular predictions on here (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Nightcrawling, A Spell For Good Things, Birnam Wood, Really Good Actually, The Rabbit Hutch), I am really intrigued to see how I get on with these books.

The shortlist of six books will be announced on 26th April, so I’ll be aiming to get as much of the longlist read before then as possible. The winner will be announced on 14th June, so you’ve got plenty of time to read them all before then, if that sounds like fun!

So, what do you think of the longlist? How many have you read? How many do you plan on reading? Are you as surprised as I am?! Now, go and read all the books, my lovely readers!

-Love, Alex x

[gleesonarchive]

ɴᴇᴡ • A first look at some early character design from director Jess Patterson for 'Worry World' 💭

'Worry World' is a short film with voices by Domhnall Gleeson and Florence Adebambo!

📷 worryworld (17.11.2023)

[lilianeruyters]

Siân Hughes || Pearl

Booker Prize Longlist 2023 Pearl is a beautiful novel about a young woman trying to come to terms with her mother’s disappearance when she was still a young child. What I loved most was the subtle shift at the end: from searching for the unhappiness that made her mother leave her family she starts to realise that until that day all was evidence of happiness. Pearl is the long road it takes to…

[bbcghostsupdates]

Ghosts award nominations update!

Ghosts has been nominated for a British Comedy Award for Best Returning Sitcom 🤍

This is for the Longlist and it closes Sunday 7th January and a Shortlist will run from Monday 8th January

Let’s please bring home something for our talented team at Ghosts 🤍👻

The link to vote is below!

[alexdecampi]

My and @ericafails’ PARASOCIAL made it onto ComicsBeat’s Best Comics of 2023 list with a hell of a writeup:

“Parasocial is an original graphic novel by two of the finest creators working in the medium today. This is a book that addresses questions of perspective and power with genuine nuance and curiosity, and with a thorough approach to our various post-modern/late-stage capitalist malaises (including the pandemic). All this rich thematic goodness and the story itself is actually a frantic, claustrophobic, and completely compelling thriller. Erica Henderson’s storytelling throughout is expansive — at turns tender, at others punishingly brutal. Her capacity to show things like truth and illusion is astonishing. Alex de Campi’s critical voice has never been sharper than it is here, and the sense of co-creation and trust between the two storytellers is so strong that there’s no seam when it comes to the feeling and overall vibe of this book. Given that it comes with its own playlist, I think I’m allowed to say this is a band that is absolutely down in the groove. Parasocial is a masterpiece.” — Adam Karenina Sherif / ComicsBeat Best Graphic Novels of 2023

We’re also on the ALA’s Best Graphic Novels of 2023 longlist xxx

Treat yourself (or a friend), especially if you’ve ever been deeply involved or interested in fandom spaces

[richincolor]

Trans YA Books for Your 2023 TBR Pile

The last time there was a big B&N sale, I knew I had to stock up on some YA books -- and as I was sifting through my frankly absurdly long to-be-read list, I realized that there were more than a few YA books centering trans and BIPOC characters. I was so excited by this, and hope there are even more books centering BIPOC trans characters in 2024. For now, here are 5 trans YA books -- available now! -- that you should bump up to the very top of your TBR:

Venom & Vow by Anna-Marie McLemore and Elliott McLemore Keep your enemy closer. Cade McKenna is a transgender prince who’s doubling for his brother. Valencia Palafox is a young dama attending the future queen of Eliana. Gael Palma is the infamous boy assassin Cade has vowed to protect. Patrick McKenna is the reluctant heir to a kingdom, and the prince Gael has vowed to destroy.

Cade doesn’t know that Gael and Valencia are the same person. Valencia doesn’t know that every time she thinks she’s fighting Patrick, she’s fighting Cade. And when Cade and Valencia blame each other for a devastating enchantment that takes both their families, neither of them realizes that they have far more dangerous enemies.

Lark & Kasim Start a Revolution by Kacen Callender From National Book Award–winner Kacen Callender, a contemporary YA that follows Lark's journey to speak the truth and discover how their own self-love can be a revolution

Lark Winters wants to be a writer, and for now that means posting on their social media accounts––anything to build their platform. When former best friend Kasim accidentally posts a thread on Lark's Twitter declaring his love for a secret, unrequited crush, Lark's tweets are suddenly the talk of the school—and beyond. To protect Kasim, Lark decides to take the fall, pretending they accidentally posted the thread in reference to another classmate. It seems like a great idea: Lark gets closer to their crush, Kasim keeps his privacy, and Lark's social media stats explode. But living a lie takes a toll—as does the judgment of thousands of Internet strangers. Lark tries their best to be perfect at all costs, but nothing seems good enough for the anonymous hordes––or for Kasim, who is growing closer to Lark, just like it used to be between them . . . In the end, Lark must embrace their right to their messy emotions and learn how to be in love.

Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore Stonewall Honor recipient and two-time National Book Award Longlist selectee Anna-Marie McLemore weaves an intoxicating tale of glamor and heartbreak in Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix, part of the Remixed Classics series.

New York City, 1922. Nicolás Caraveo, a 17-year-old transgender boy from Minnesota, has no interest in the city’s glamor. Going to New York is all about establishing himself as a young professional, which could set up his future—and his life as a man—and benefit his family.

Nick rents a small house in West Egg from his 18-year-old cousin, Daisy Fabrega, who lives in fashionable East Egg near her wealthy fiancé, Tom—and Nick is shocked to find that his cousin now goes by Daisy Fay, has erased all signs of her Latina heritage, and now passes seamlessly as white. Nick’s neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious young man named Jay Gatsby, whose castle-like mansion is the stage for parties so extravagant that they both dazzle and terrify Nick. At one of these parties, Nick learns that the spectacle is all for the benefit of impressing a girl from Jay’s past—Daisy. And he learns something else: Jay is also transgender.

As Nick is pulled deeper into the glittery culture of decadence, he spends more time with Jay, aiming to help his new friend reconnect with his lost love. But Nick's feelings grow more complicated when he finds himself falling hard for Jay's openness, idealism, and unfounded faith in the American Dream.

The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa El Diablo is in the details in this Latinx pirate fantasy starring a transmasculine nonbinary teen with a mission of revenge, redemption, and revolution.

On Mar León-de la Rosa's 16th birthday, el Diablo comes calling. Mar is a transmasculine nonbinary teen pirate hiding a magical ability to manipulate fire and ice. But their magic isn't enough to reverse a wicked bargain made by their father and now el Diablo has come to collect his payment: the soul of Mar's father and the entire crew of their ship.

When Mar is miraculously rescued by the sole remaining pirate crew in the Caribbean, el Diablo returns to give them a choice: give up your soul to save your father by the Harvest Moon or never see him again. The task is impossible--Mar refuses to make a bargain and there's no way their magic is any match for el Diablo. Then, Mar finds the most unlikely allies: Bas, an infuriatingly arrogant and handsome pirate -- and the captain's son; and Dami, a genderfluid demonio whose motives are never quite clear. For the first time in their life, Mar may have the courage to use their magic. It could be their only redemption -- or it could mean certain death.

Transmogrify!: 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic edited by g. haron davis Transness is as varied and colorful as magic can be. In Transmogrify!, you’ll embark on fourteen different adventures alongside unforgettable characters who embody many different genders and expressions and experiences—because magic is for everyone, and that is cause for celebration.

Featuring stories from: AR Capetta and Cory McCarthy g. haron davis Mason Deaver Jonathan Lenore Kastin Emery Lee Saundra Mitchell Cam Montgomery Ash Nouveau Sonora Reyes Renee Reynolds Dove Salvatierra Ayida Shonibar Francesca Tacchi Nik Traxler

[denimbex1986]

'Doctor Who star David Tennant has been announced as the host of next month's Bafta Film Awards.

It will be the actor's first time hosting the prestigious ceremony, which is being held at the Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre.

He will be taking over from last year's host, Richard E Grant, who presented alongside Alison Hammond.

The 2024 ceremony will take place on 18 February and be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Tennant, 52, who has appeared in TV series including Broadchurch and Good Omens, recently returned to Doctor Who for the show's 60th anniversary episodes, where he played the 14th Time Lord.

He said: "I am delighted to have been asked to host the EE Bafta Film Awards and help celebrate the very best of this year's films and the many brilliant people who bring them to life."

He starred in Doctor Who's 60th anniversary with Catherine Tate, who reprised her role as Donna Noble, a companion of the 10th Doctor, also played by Tennant.

Jane Millichip, the chief executive of Bafta, said the organisation was "over the moon" at Tennant's appointment.

She added: "He is deservedly beloved by British and international audiences alike.

"His warmth, charm and mischievous wit will make it a must-watch show."

The Bafta Film Awards longlists have been announced across 24 categories.

Greta Gerwig's Barbie, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Martin Scorsese's Killers Of The Flower Moon feature in 15 categories.

All three are in the running for best film, director and screenplay awards.

Saltburn, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and Poor Things are among the 15 films which will advance in the Outstanding British film category.

Lily Gladstone makes an appearance in the leading actress category for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, while Bradley Cooper is among the stars listed for leading actor for his performance in Maestro.

The nominations for the 77th annual awards will be announced on 18 January by English actress Naomi Ackie and Barbie actor Kingsley Ben-Adir.

The nominations for the EE rising star award, the only Bafta where the winner is selected by the British public, will be announced on 10 January.

Last year Tennant appeared with Tate at the TV Baftas to present the best features award to Joe Lycett vs Beckham: Got Your Back At Xmas.

Tennant previously collected two best actor awards for his performances in both Doctor Who: Doomsday and The Escape Artist from Bafta Cymru and Bafta Scotland respectively.

The awards season kicks off with the Golden Globes on Sunday while the Oscars will be held on 10 March.'

[valya-dudycz-lupescu]

Last week, the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) released their longlist of nominees for the BSFA Awards, for work published in 2023. Embroidered Worlds: Fantastic Fiction from Ukraine and the Diaspora was among those listed for Best Collections! I am honored that we were included; I'm also so excited to see Ukrainian fiction on a list like this.

When I was a young reader in the 80s and 90s, I dreamed of such an opportunity; and I am heartened to know that readers are enjoying and discussing these stories by writers in Ukraine and the Diaspora.

There are so many thoughtful collections and fantastic stories on this list, and I encourage you to take a look. Congratulations to my incredible co-editors, Olha Brylova & Iryna Pasko and to all the nominees!

[vikingnerd793]

Non-binary actor Samantha Béart on Baldur’s Gate 3 & more

Another solid interview!

[emmersreads]

My Top 5 Best Books of 2023

Scrolling through bookstagram's endless reels of folks bemoaning the state of readerly types - new publications are disposable crap, everyone else is reading too much, etc - it might seem like 2023 was a terrible year for books. But, of all my longlists, this one was the longest, and the one I had the most trouble cutting down to only six. I read 119 books in 2023 (you can read my round-up of my five worst here), and here are my five favourites. Every single one of these books deserves to top your tbr for 2024.

Read the post on my blog!

Honourable Mention: Yellowface - R. F. Kuang

R.F. Kuang has figured out how to use irony and its a good look on her. Kuang’s political messaging is great — I particularly enjoyed her depiction of the publishing industry’s white fragility as deeply stupid — but we already knew that. I would expect nothing less from the author of Babel. The think that elevates Yellowface in particular is Kuang’s self-awareness in depicting Athena, the Asian writer whose novel the protagonist steals, as a talented literary wunderkind, but also as frustrating and not necessarily innocent in the problem of who is allow to tell ethically-loaded stories. I’m definitely looking forwards to her next project.

Fifth Place: Small Worlds - Caleb Azumah Nelson

This is the diverse romance novel you’ve been looking for. This is the inspiring hopepunk novel you’ve been looking for. This is the insightful and emotional coming-of-age novel you’ve been looking for. Small Worlds is all the more comforting and heart-warming because it is primarily about persistence and joy in the face of crushing personal failure and devastating systemic violence. Caleb Azumh Nelson’s motif of relationships in which both partners must break up in order to become the kind of people who can be in a long-term relationship with each other is a kind of romance arc I unexpectedly love. This entry in particular gets extra credit for its incredibly good audiobook adaptation. The audiobook is narrated by the author, whose southeast London accent and obvious emotional connection to novel make it the ideal way to read.

Fourth Place: Breasts and Eggs - Mieko Kawakami

After a couple of truly miserable memoirs this year I declared that I simply did not want to hear writers talk about motherhood. I spoke too soon because then I read this. Breasts and Eggs is in incredible reflection on being a woman that has something to offer if you love being a woman, if you hate it, or if you feel ambivalent about it. I don’t like children and can’t imagine ever wanting one — to the point that I find the endless angsting about the conflict between writing and motherhood faintly nauseating — but I found that this was the first book about being a mother that had something interesting to say even for people who never want to be mothers. Kawakami’s novel-in-translation has (for the anglophone reader) a sense of strangeness both in form and content. The book’s approach to gender and family is often intimately familiar, but just as often introduces a perspective that is deeply strange to a western reader, provoking us to think about our own assumptions about the importance of family. I particularly liked the scene in which protagonist Natsu visits a bath house and encounters a woman in a relationship with a trans man in the female section of the bath. Natsu struggles through a long thought process of whether she ought to be offended or not. Would she be similarly offended if she encountered cis lesbian PDA?

Third Place: Penance - Eliza Clark

For me, Penance was intensely personal, like looking back on my own teenagerhood. I also grew up as a deeply strange child, something that was immediately recognized by the other children. That feeling of somehow being a different species from other kids, not doing anything right and not understanding how it is wrong, is something that this novel absolutely nails. That might be a strange association for a true crime story about a horrible schoolgirl murder. This is the dramatic extension of what could happen to five people who were once very lonely little girls, and I think reading too much into the ‘how could they do something like this?’ of it all is missing the forest for the trees and playing into the true crime gaze that the book criticizes. Clark is interested both in true crime that dehumanizes its subject matter, and true crime the aspires to humanize and platform them. Is it any more ethical to demand access to someone’s life out of love?

Second Place: He Who Drowned the World - Shelley Parker-Chan

Shelley Parker-Chan’s The Radiant Emperor duology is the best queer fantasy series out there. Period. He Who Drowned the World takes its engagement with gender and sexuality to another level. At least for me, there is something much more meaningful and impactful to the theme of gender as something performed in spite of difficulties, distrust, and lack of acknowledgement. Parker-Chan understands that gender is often unpleasant or even hateful. This isn’t a book for a brave new utopia where every bra fits on the first try, it’s for the present, where the wrong bra gives you a fibrous lump. If She Who Became the Sun was Zhu embracing her gender, the sequel is about Ouyang’s often deeply upsetting ability to accept his. His hatred of any femininity, first and foremost his own, isn’t an easy read, but I found there was something incredibly resonant in it to my own ambivalent feelings towards femininity. No one else depicts self-hatred this well.

First Place: Chain-Gang All-Stars - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

As soon as I finished Chain-Gang All-Stars I knew it would be my book of the year. I read a lot of great books but this blew every single one of them out the water. It is Gladiator by way of The Shawshank Redemption by way of professional wrestling. It’s the scifi sequel to The New Jim Crow and Ava DuVernay’s 13th. It’s the best love story of the year. Chain-Gang All-Stars is an exploration of the humanity of inmates, who, in this world, are objectified both due to their involvement in the criminal justice system (as in ours) and from the gaze of sports and reality entertainment. It’s hard to decide which aspect of this book is most technically impressive. I usually don’t like when a political novel tries to comment on too many different issues, but this book deftly balances deep and effective discussions on a huge range of topics. I especially appreciated its engagement with an inmates’ personal feelings of guilt and culpability within a carceral system that doesn’t care at all about remediating the harm they have caused. This deft political messaging is combined with an insightful depiction of the ambivalent success of professional athletes, multidimensional characters, and a touching romance. My favourite part of the book was how effectively it traps the reader. I understand and agree with all the condemnations of the exploitation inherent to entertainment in watching primarily BIPOC athletes destroy their health (this is about wrestling but also boxing and American football), but I still found myself thinking about just how incredible this book would be as a TV series. The use of complicity as a theme is unparalleled.

[wellesleybooks]

The Booker Prize shortlist was announced today. The Booker Prize is open to works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. Five of the six books are available here in the US. The six shortlist books were chosen from the longlist of 13 books, and the judges’ selection for the longlist was made from 156 books published between October 2023 and September 2024.

[mastara]

I made the Folio Book Illustration Award 2023 longlist! Illustration for Ursula Le Guin's Flyers of Gy, a short story about... identity, and maybe creativity, and gifts, curses, choices and sacrifice.

[lauraroselam]

award eligibility 2023

Hey, I found out that Dragonfall made the Locus 2023 Recommended Reading list along with so many other excellent works.

https://locusmag.com/2024/02/2023-recommended-reading-list/

It's also recently been longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association award for best novel. I released Dragonfall and a short story "Wolf Teeth" in Shoreline of Infinity. They're eligible for awards like the Hugo.

External validation is a trap but it's also really nice to get these in the last couple of weeks and feel like this weird, queer dragon book got a little recognition. 🐉☺️

[lilianeruyters]

Elaine Feeney || How to Build a Boat

Booker Prize Longlist 2023 I am not quite sure about How to Build a Boat. At times I felt it was getting a tad over the top. On the cover of my copy Douglas Stuart claims that How to Build is ‘a gorgeous gift of a novel, hopeful and full of humanity’. I agree with it being hopeful and being full of humanity. Maybe I would have appreciated its literary quality more if it had been less full of…

[holdoncallfailed]

can you do a longlist of the books about strong girl protags and female friendships, etc. that were really impactful/your favorites so i know what to gift/rec any young girls in my life?

aww!! i would literally love nothing more than to compile such a list ty anon. i tried to put them in an order vaguely representative of youngest audiences to older...i'm not sure how well some of these would hold up in 2023 but they're all ones i remember enjoying and having an impact on me somehow...

not one damsel in distress by jane yolen

the daring book for girls by andrea j. buchanan & miriam peskowitz

the whole dear america series!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the ordinary princess by m. m. kaye

the caddie woodlawn series by carol ryrie brink

walk two moons by sharon creech (i used to have whole passages of this book memorized because i read it so often...potentially the most formative one on this list)

because of winn-dixie by kate dicamillo

the scholastic encyclopedia of U.S. women by sheila keenan (my elementary school art teacher had this book in her classroom library and i remember flipping through it when i was hanging around after school while my mom was doing PTA stuff...it was the first time i'd heard of so many of those women and further stoked my interest in history. i remember being so disturbed [and also intrigued] by the entry about ethel rosenberg specifically. i'm sure there are more updated versions of the book but this is the particular edition i remember reading.)

the penderwick sisters series by jeanne birdsall

bloomability by sharon creech

everything on a waffle by polly horvath

the tracy beaker series by jacqueline wilson

the outcasts of 19 schuyler place by e. l. konigsburg (also extremely formative)

saffy's angel / the whole casson family series by hilary mckay (i used to carry these books around with me as if they were security blankets)

p.s. longer letter later and snail mail no more by paula danziger & ann m. martin

the secret language of girls by frances o'roarke dowell

the tail of emily windsnap by liz kessler

savvy by ingrid law

love, stargirl by jerry spinelli (idk if any book had more of an impact on me as a child tbh like this rocked my world so completely i still think about it/quote it all the time. i know a lot of people read stargirl in school and honestly i don't think it's that good but the sequel is so underrated. so read it.)

a perfect gentle knight by kit pearson

feathers by jacqueline woodson

habibi by naomi shihab nye

the anastasia krupnik series by lois lowry

criss cross by lynne rae perkins

ella enchanted by gail carson levine........OBVIOUSLY

esperanza rising by pam muñoz ryan

kira-kira by cynthia kadohata

the city of ember by jeanne duprau

bad girls by cynthia voigt (tbh i REALLY don't know how this one holds up but i remember thinking it was pretty edgy as a kid)

little women by louisa may alcott

hurt go happy by ginny rorby

persepolis by marjane satrapi (obviously for slightly older readers)

the aforementioned rookie yearbook, natch. (also older)