Sunday, July 31, 2011

Introduction - Tony Messenger

Hello everyone! I stumbled across this magnificent site whilst searching for old out-of-print Booker Nominees. You may call this an obsession, you may call it insane, however for the last 20 odd years I have been buying the Booker Prize shortlisted novels and have read them in order to be outraged or concur with the judge’s decisions. Some years I have been mad enough to extend my reading to the long list....

Over that time I have managed to back fill my collection of Booker nominees and have randomly read older ones. Recently I decided that I would commence with the 1969 shortlist and read my way forward. Each September that will be put on hold whilst I churn through the current shortlist.

I’ve probably read between 80 to 120 or so of the 242 shortlisted books (I haven’t included the “missing Booker” from 1970 that they retrospectively awarded in 2010).

A great site to share thoughts and I thank Laura for making me welcome.

I've started my own blog at messybooker.blogspot.com posting an intro and a listing of the books I'm still missing from my collection (the photo there is part of my collection).

3 comments:

  1. Welcome, Tony! I'm glad to have you as part of the group and look forward to reading your thoughts as you plow through the list.

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  2. Tony - you are well ahead of me and I am really interested to see what you think about some of the older nominees and winners - they're not well respresented here and I DO plan to read them (assuming I can find a copy). Looking forward to your reviews!

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  3. I've put three quick reviews up of the books I own from the 1969 list at my blog messybooker.blogspot.com and am very impressed by all of them. The main issue with the older lists is actually finding copies of them to read - it's sad to think that a celebrated novel of 35 or so years ago could now be out of print!!!

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