Thursday Thoughts
On the Booker Prize winner, a new fantasy novel, and the Ten Books Before the End challenge
Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital has won the 2024 Booker Prize. I haven’t read it, but it sounds thought-provoking. I was surprised by the judges’ selection because the shortlist was as strong as any book award has had in years. The finalists included Percival Everett’s brilliant James, Rachel Kushner’ Creation Lake, Canadian poet-novelist Anne Michaels’ Held, Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep, and Australian novelist Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional. I’m a terrible prognosticator, so of course I thought James or possibly Held or The Safekeep would win.
My surprise is based on the fact that Orbital is a very short book (166 to 205 pages depending on which country’s edition you read) that reportedly has little to no plot. It is distinguished by its insight into humanity and impressive use of language, both of which I value in my reading. But I’m also a fan of characters that you come to know intimately and care deeply about and a plot with some narrative momentum. Orbital strikes me as a critic’s or literature professor’s choice, but not one that most readers of literary fiction would necessarily love. I guess I’m saying I prefer somewhat of a compromise between pure art and more commercial considerations. That’s where a book like James shines. I don’t have strong feelings about this; just some “thoughts.”
Do you love the occasional YA or Middle Grade fantasy novel? I loved The Hobbit when I read it in 5th grade (oh so long ago), and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass) is one of the greatest reading experiences of my life. I just finished reading Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, and it deserves to be mentioned in the same company.
Like the Pullman trilogy, it’s the story of a girl, ably assisted by a boy, who has to save the world from a malevolent force. It seems there is a portal to a parallel world called the Archipelago located in the North Atlantic between Greenland and Nova Scotia. This collection of islands provides a haven for magical creatures, good and evil, that are considered mythical in our world, including dragons, unicorns, griffins, centaurs, mermaids, and sphinxes, among others. But they are suddenly dying off. It’s unclear what is causing this, but Mal and Christopher are the chosen ones to solve the mystery, with the help of a huge Berserker named Nighthand (who reminded me a little of Hagrid from the Harry Potter novels) and a few of his friends.
Impossible Creatures is a Middle Grade novel, so it is not as rich and detailed as the Pullman novels, but it’s an absorbing and often captivating adventure with likable protagonists, a compelling moral quandary, and almost nonstop action. The Waterstone’s bookstore chain in the UK named it the Book of the Year for 2023 (not just in a YA/MG category, but the overall winner: the book of the year). It took a while to be published in the U.S. (it was released in September), in part because Knopf commissioned a new set of illustrations for the American market (also like the Harry Potter series). So far, it has a 4.5 rating on Amazon and a 4.2 on Goodreads.
Update: On Friday, November 15, Barnes & Noble announced that Impossible Creatures was their Children's Book of the Year for 2024. "A fantasy masterpiece from Katherine Rundell. An adventure story of mythical beasts under threat of extinction and the pair of courageous children resolved to save them."
About a month ago, inspired by the Ten Before the End challenge on Instagram, I posted a photo of ten books I hoped to read before the end of the year.
Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening by Elizabeth Rosner; Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange; Have Mercy On Us: Stories by Lisa Cupolo; Seeking Fortune Elsewhere by Sindya Bhanoo; On Fragile Waves by Lily Yu; The Visitors by Jane Harrison; The Wedding People by Alison Espach; Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker; The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue; and Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshanantanhan (which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in June).
So, how am I coming along on this challenge? With only six weeks left in 2024, I’m halfway through the first book in the stack, Third Ear by Elizabeth Rosner. As usual, I try to plan my reading but always revert to my default mode of mood reader. I get distracted by other books that look really good – both new releases and back catalog titles that I’ve never read and decide I need to read right now!.
I still want to read the other nine books in the stack. I’ll probably get to half of them. At the moment, I’m reading The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, which was a finalist for the Booker Prize. And I want to read another finalist, Held by Anne Michaels. And I need to read Will End in Fire by Nicole Bokat and This is Happiness by Niall Williams. And so it goes.
Are there any books in the photo above that you insist I read as soon as possible? Leave a comment and I promise to take your suggestion into consideration.