And so it begins

This year I entered the Elizabeth Strout universe by reading her most famous novel, Pulitzer Prize winning Olive Kitteridge (2008), followed by her most recent novel, Tell Me Everything (2024). I greatly enjoyed both novels and soon discovered that Strout has created a whole world of interlinked stories to explore. So, I have gone back to the start to where it all began, her debut novel.

Amy and Isabelle (1998) tells the story of a relationship between single mother and her teenage daughter over a long, hot summer in New England. Isabelle Goodrow lives in a tiny rental house at the edge of the town of Shirley Falls. She works at the local mill where she does not really know how to engage with her fellow workers, and has a secret longing for her boss. She is a devoted member of her congregation and a good soul. Isabelle longs for a social life of her own, yet has put all her energy into raising her daughter Amy. But there is tension in the house, with Amy and Isabelle unable to communicate and frustrations growing. Fortunately Isabelle has secured a summer job for Amy at the mill, so she can keep an eye on her daughter. 

We flashback to what has happened over the past few months, and how the two have drifted apart. Aged almost sixteen, Amy is thinking about being a teacher when she finishes high school. She spends much of her time hanging out with her best friend Stacy, secretly smoking cigarettes, and talking about Stacy's boyfriend. Amy is shy, hiding behind a mane of wavy blond hair. She has never had a boyfriend and has few friends, other than the rambunctious Stacy. 

The arrival of a substitute math teacher, Mr Robertson, has brought Amy out of her shell. She forms a crush on the married teacher which distracts her from her schoolwork and causes her to act out of character. As her relationship with Mr Robertson becomes closer, she begins lying to her mother about her whereabouts. Things reach a boiling point between Amy and Isabelle, when Amy's sexual secrets are discovered, and it is a hard road back for their relationship to recover.

Strout has an incredible ability to realistically portray the ordinary, mundane business of life - work, family, church, school. She dishes out the backstory of various characters in delicious morsels, building well rounded individuals that the reader cannot help but be intrigued by. I particularly loved the development of Isabelle's character - her attempts at self-development through reading, the befriending of colleagues at the mill, her fear of scandal, and the realisation that the object of her desire is not so desirable. 

I have met Isabelle Goodrow before, in Tell Me Everything, set decades after Amy and Isabelle, she is the bestfriend of Olive Kitteridge. In this later novel we find out more about what happened between the mother-daughter duo after the original story ended. 

Having now read three of Strout's novels, I completely understand her popularity and critical acclaim. I cannot wait to explore the other books in this series.

My reviews of other books by Elizabeth Strout are available on this blog:

• Olive Kitteridge (2008)
• Tell Me Everything (2024)

Booker Prize 2025 Predictions

The Booker Prize Longlist will be announced at the end of July. It has been a wonderful year for books, but always a challenge to predict which novels will be chosen for the longlist as the Booker is known for its surprises. 

To be eligible, the novel has to have been written in English and published in UK/Ireland between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025. While I am not across when novels were published in UK/Ireland, I am going to take a guess at who might appear on the longlist. 

My predictions for the Booker longlist this year are:

1. 
   Michelle de Krester - Theory and Practice 
2. Adbulrakaz Gurnah - Theft
3. Alan Hollinghust - Our Evenings
4. Laila Lalami - The Dream Hotel
5. Melissa Lucashenko - Edenglassie
6. Roisin O'Donnell - Nesting
7. Torrey Peters - Stag Dance
8. Anthony Shapland - A Room Above a Shop
9. David Szalay - Flesh
10. Madeleine Thien - The Book of Records
11. Tim Winton - Juice
12. Nussaibah Younis - Fundamentally

I had to narrow down my list and lost Anne Tyler (Three Days in June) and Ian McEwan (What We Can Know) along the way. I know there is no way there will be three Australian authors on the list, but I am hoping that at least one of these three - de Krester, Lucashenko or Winton - make the cut. I have only read O'Donnell from my list but I am keen to read the Hollinghurst, Winton, Shapland and more. 

The judging panel this year consists of author Roddy Doyle (Booker winner in 1993), longlisted authors Ayobani Adebayo and Kiley Reid, actor Sarah Jessica Parker, and literary critic Chris Power. I can't wait to see what they came up with and how well I guessed.

The longlist will be announced on 29 July, followed by the shortlist on 23 September and the winner announcement in 10 November. 

Balance of Power

It is hard to believe that Trump's second presidency is only six months old given the scale of change he has wrought upon the world. In pursuing his 'America First' ideology, Trump has upended the global order and turned his back on old alliances. Through punishing tariffs, drastic immigration crackdowns, and the withdrawal of American overseas aid, Trump has signalled a dramatic repositioning of America's place in the world. 

Hugh White's Quarterly Essay (QE98), Hard New World: Our Post American Future (2025) is a timely exploration of this new world order and the ways in which Australia needs to navigate the changing landscape. 

The Trump world is multipolar in which Russia's ambitions in Eastern Europe and China's objectives in Asia are matched by Trump's aspirations in North America. America's containment strategy has given way. No wonder he wants Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal to form part of his American hegemony. 

White writes:

'That scene in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy perfectly exemplified Trump's vision of America in the world. He rejects the whole idea of America as the global leader, upholding and enforcing international order and promoting American values for the good of the world as a whole. To Trump, America's sole purpose in them world is too to protect America's direct interests in its own security and prosperity". (p11)

Trump's international relations are transactional, all about doing deals and trade offs. People gasped when he proposed a Riveria-style reimagination of Gaza, but this is how a real estate baron sees the world - through hotels, golf courses and casinos. He admires 'strong man' leaders - Putin, Netanyahu, Xi Jinping - and has increasingly distanced himself from the institutions and conventions that keep peace in our world. 

White's exploration of the balance of power in Asia was perhaps the most interesting as he considers where Australia fits in the new world order. He questions the AUKUS arrangement and Australia's dependence on America, arguing that eight subs (if delivered) will not deter Chinese expansion in south east Asia. With Australia trying to solidify relationships with South Pacific island nations through sports and other investments, this may not be enough to secure peace in our backyard. White reckons that Taiwan will be the flashpoint in which China tests the world's resolve - will America back Taiwan? Will Australia join America? Let's hope this fragile peace is not tested.

Over the past few days, as I read this essay, Israel and Iran have gone to war and America bombed nuclear sites. It feels as though the world is on a precipice, and I am increasingly doubtful that the leaders and institutions that prevented nuclear war will prevail. All the more reason to read this essay and gain a better understanding of what is at stake. 

Hugh White is emeritus professor of strategic studies at ANU and author of Australia's Defence White Paper 2000. White has written three previous Quarterly Essays focussed on international relations:

• Power Shift: Australia's Future between Washington and Beijing (QE39) - August 2010
• Without America: Australia in the New Asia (QE68) - November 2017
• Sleepwalk to War: Australia's Unthinking Alliance with America (QE86) - June 2025

Miles Franklin Award Shortlist

 The Miles Franklin Award Longlist was announced this week. The following six titles are up for Australia’s most prestigious literary prize:

• 
  Brian Castro - Chinese Postman 
• Michelle de Krester - Theory and Practice
• Winnie Dunn - Dirt Poor Islanders
• Julie Janson - Compasion
• Siang Lu - Ghost Cities
• Fiona McFarlane - Highway 13

I was travelling when the Longlist was announced in May so I did not write about it. The Longlist included some brilliant titles that did not make the cut: The Burrow (Melanie Cheng); Politica (Yumna Kassab); The Degenerates (Raedon Richardson); Juice (Tim Winton). I hoped that The Burrow would have made the shortlist as it is a brilliant novel, and had expected previous winner Winton to be on the list.  

If I had to pick a winner, I would put my money on the Michelle de Krester for Theory and Practice as she is on a roll, having just won the Stella Prize. But the title I am most interested in is Highway 13 - a collection of short stories about the impact of a serial killer. All will be revealed when the winner is announced in July. 

The Missing

Dervla McTiernan's crime series continues with the third novel in the DS Cormac Reilly series, The Good Turn (2020). Picking up shortly after the events of the last novel, The Scholar (2019), Reilly continues to work at a Galway police station under the watchful eye of Superintendent Brian Murphy. Reilly suspects Murphy is corrupt and just needs to figure out how to prove it. 

The story gets off to a quick start when a young girl is kidnapped. Reilly's colleague Garda Peter Fisher has to make rapid decisions in a quest to find her. The station is under resourced with everyone else assigned to a potential drug bust and Fisher is on his own. When things go wrong, Fisher is reassigned to a tiny station in his childhood hometown. Reilly is suspended, freeing him up to investigate possible corruption. 

To make matters worse, Reilly's home life is unstable. His partner Emma has moved to Europe to take up a position in a lab and their long-distance relationship is under strain. Reilly knows he has to decide between Emma and the Garda, as Emma's career is now in Europe. 

McTiernan has added interesting layers to her characters. I enjoyed learning more about Fisher and his past in this novel, particularly his relationships with his estranged father and his beloved grandmother. Reilly too is evolving, trying to figure out what he wants from his life. 

The Good Turn is a page-turner with plenty of twists and turns to keep readers guessing. In this third outing, McTiernan has perfected her storytelling. She paces out reveals and I was interested to see the ways in which she brought various story threads together. The Good Turn can be read as a standalone novel, but it is far more interesting to read this series in order. 

The Reilly series continues in The Unquiet Grave (2025) which I hope to read soon. My reviews of other novels in the Cormac Reilly series are available on this blog:

• The Ruin (2018) - Cormac Reilly #1
• The Scholar (2019) - Cormac Reilly #2

Revisiting Murder on the Canadian

I have just returned from a holiday in Canada. One of the highlights of my trip was to spend four days on The Canadian travelling from Vancouver to Toronto. The Via Rail train took us through the Rocky Mountains, across the Prairies and over the Canadian Shield, showcasing the natural beauty of Canada's trees, rivers, fields and canyons. When I arrived in Toronto many of my friends jokingly asked whether there had been a murder on the train! 

As children in the 1980s we had read Eric Wilson's novel Murder on the Canadian (1976), the first in his Tom and Liz Austen mystery series, and my friends' question reminded me of the story. While in Toronto I picked up a copy of the book and refreshed my memory of this tale from long ago which I initially read when I was 9 or 10 years of age. Would the story still hold up forty years later?

Young Tom Austen is obsessed with the Hardy Boys and longs to be a detective. He boards the Canadian in Winnipeg bound for Vancouver to spend time with his grandparents. He is a solo traveller, but soon finds his frenemy Dietmar Oban is sharing his berth. The two boys are in search of adventure and their imaginations run away with them as they explore the train. 

A scream brings Tom running down the corridor to the scene of a crime. A woman is dead and Tom reckons he can find the killer. Using the deduction skills he has learned from Sherlock Holmes and the Hardy Boys he looks for clues. As he begins to piece together what occurred he finds himself face-to-face with the killer!

The Canadian - Dome Car

Murder on the Canadian is aimed at young adults. Not unlike an Agatha Christie novel, Wilson has used the confined space of the moving train to his advantage in the plotting of this novel. Having been on The Canadian, I enjoyed Wilson's descriptions of the dome car and the dining car, which remain as they were half a century ago. Wilson has also filled the train with interesting passengers for Tom to encounter as he attempts to rule out suspects.

Revisiting this novel as an adult was a nostalgic experience. As a child Tom's adventures were thrilling, and he was a delightful protagonist with his quick wit and ability to get out of tricky situations. There is something very pure about Tom's naiveté. At only 122 pages, it is a quick and easy read.

This is the first of twenty books in the series, which includes Vancouver Nightmare (1978), Terror in Winnipeg (1979), The Lost Treasure of Casa Loma (1980), and Cold Midnight in Old Quebec (1989). I recall reading a couple of these in my childhood, before I moved on to the Choose Your Own Adventure series. 

Ultimately, I would recommend this for young readers and found that it is still an exciting story all these years later.  For older readers, I would highly recommend travelling on The Canadian - it is an unforgettable journey!

Women's Prize Winners 2025

The Winners of the 2025 Women's Prize have been announced! 

The Non-Fiction prize was awarded to Rachel Clarke for The Story of a Heart, while the Fiction prize was presented to Yael van der Wouden for The Safe Keep. Each author receives £30,000 The Women's Prize also announced a one-off Outstanding Contribution Award would be presented to Bernadine Evaristo in recognition of her body of work and her advocacy for women.

Women's Prize for Fiction

The Safe Keep is set fifteen years after the end of World War II, the Netherlands is quiet and has been reconstructed. In a rural Dutch province, Isabel lives a peaceful life in her late mother's country home. When her brother Louis and his girlfriend Eva show up for an extended stay, Isabel's life is disrupted in ways she could not have imagined. With great skill, the author navigates the post-war reckoning and the legacy of loss and dispossession. Dutch author Yael van der Wouden is a lecturer in literature and creative writing, and this is her first novel. The Safe Keep was also shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. I loved this novel, and as I wrote in my review (available on this blog) the story is engrossing ad the characters stay with you long after you finish reading. 

Kit de Waal, Chair of Judges, said of the winner:

‘The Safe Keep is that rare thing: a masterful blend of history, suspense and historical authenticity. Every word is perfectly placed, page after page revealing an aspect of war and the Holocaust that has been, until now, mostly unexplored in fiction. It is also a love story with beautifully rendered intimate scenes written with delicacy and compelling eroticism. This astonishing debut is a classic in the making, a story to be loved and appreciated for generations to come. Books like this don’t come along every day.’

I am delighted that Yael van der Wouden has been recognised for this novel.  As I wrote in my assessment of the shortlist, I had hoped that Miranda July would win for All Fours, but if it couldn't be July, I am so pleased that van der Wouden has been recognised.

Women's Prize for Non-Fiction

Palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke writes about nine-year-old Keira who was in a devastating car accident. Keira's brain and organs began to shut down, but her heart continued to beat. Her family agreed to donate her heart and it was gifted to nine-year old Max. Max had been in hospital for a year with a virus which affected his heart. Clarke tells this story of grief and a lifesaving gift, and the impact on two families. Rachel Clarke is the author of three bestselling non-fiction books including Breathtaking (which was adapted into a tv series) and Dear Life about her work in an NHS hospice (which was nominated for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize). 

Kavita Puri, Chair of Judges, said of the winner:

‘The Story of a Heart left a deep and long-lasting impression on us. Clarke’s writing is authoritative, beautiful and compassionate. The research is meticulous, and the story-telling is expertly crafted. She holds this precious story with great care and tells it with dignity, interweaving the history of transplant surgery seamlessly. This is a book where humanity shines through on every page, from the selfless act of the parents who gift their daughter’s heart in the depths of despair, to the dedication of the NHS workers. It is unforgettable, and will be read for many years to come.’.

I have not read this book but it sounds like an incredibly moving story.

Outstanding Contribution Award

To celebrate 30 years of the Women's Prize for Fiction, a special award was created for an author "in recognition of her body of work, her significant contribution to literature, and her strong advocacy for women.” To be eligible, authors must have been previously longlisted, shortlisted or winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the past thirty years and they must have published a minimum of five books. The award was presented to Bernadine Evaristo in recognition of her work.

Kate Mosse, Women's Prizes Founder Director, said:

We felt that Bernardine Evaristo’s beautiful, ambitious and inventive body of work (which includes plays, poetry, essays, monologues and memoir as well as award-winning fiction), her dazzling skill and imagination, and her courage to take risks and offer readers a pathway into diverse and multifarious worlds over a forty-year career, made her the ideal recipient of the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award. Significantly, Evaristo has consistently used her own magnificent achievements and exceptional talent as a springboard to create opportunities for others, to promote unheard and under-heard women’s voices and to ensure that every female writer feels she has a conduit for her talent. Congratulations to Bernardine and a huge thank you to my fellow judges for such a joyous and celebratory process.

When I wrote about this award I had anticipated it might go to Margaret Atwood or Barbara Kingsolver might win. While I had not selected Evaristo, I am so pleased that she won and I concur with Kate Mosse's sentiments above. I had the great fortune of seeing Evaristo speak and meeting her at the 2023 Sydney Writers' Festival and she is tremendous. 

Want more?

The Women's Prizes were presented at a celebration in London on 12 June 2025. Here is a video of the presentation. 

Stella Prize Winner 2025

The winner of the Stella Prize has been announced. Author Michelle de Krester won for her novel Theory and Practice.

Set in Melbourne in 1986, a young woman is researching the novels of Virginia Woolf. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students. She also meets Kit and as they become lovers, her work on Woolf is sidelined. Theory & Practice looks at desire and jealousy, truth and shame.

“Theory & Practice is an exceptional novel of hyper realism in which Michelle de Kretser, an author at the height of her powers, interrogates the messiness of life found in the gap between theory and practice.” - Astrid Edwards Judges' Chair.

Michelle de Krester gave a remarkable acceptance speech, well worth viewing (below), in which she spoke out against the atrocities in Gaza and made an impassioned plea for supporting the Palestinian people. In doing so she highlighted the cost of speaking out, and the willingness of the media, academia and others to equate commentary denouncing the genocide with anti-Semitism. Absolutely brilliant. 

International Booker Prize Winner 2025

The International Booker Prize 2025 Winner has been announced.

The Winner is Heat Lamp by Banu Mushtaq (translated by Deepa Bhasthi). 

Max Porter, Chair of the judges writes of this winner:

 

"Heart Lamp is something genuinely new for English readers. A radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes. It challenges and expands our understanding of translation. These beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects. It speaks of women’s lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression. 

 
‘This was the book the judges really loved, right from our first reading. It’s been a joy to listen to the evolving appreciation of these stories from the different perspectives of the jury. We are thrilled to share this timely and exciting winner of the International Booker Prize 2025 with readers around the world.’

The prize awards £25,000 to the author and £25,000 to the translator, in recognition of the essential work of translators in bringing fiction to a wider audience. 

Dublin Literary Award Winner 2025

The Dublin Literary Award Winner has been announced. After an extremely longlist of seventy-one titles, and a shortlist of six, the judges have determined a single winner.

The Winner of the 100,000 Euro prize is Canadian author Michael Crummey for The Adversary. 

The Adversary is set in an isolated outport in northern Newfoundland. Abe Strapp is planning to marry the daughter of a rival merchant, when Widow Caines disrupts his nuptials. Two mercantile firms - the Caines and the Strapps - are now on a collision course, and locals are forced to take sides. This historical novel is Crummey’s sixth novel. 

The Storyteller

With only days to go before my overseas holiday, I didn't want to start a new novel. Perusing my shelves, I found Nobody's Looking at You (2019) is a collection of essays by the legendary Janet Malcolm. Rather than reading from cover to cover, I have dipped in and out of this collection for many years, savouring her brilliant writing and fascinating choice of subjects. This compilation of narrative non-fiction contains her work that has been previously published in the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.

Highlights in this eclectic collection are many. The title essay 'Nobody's Looking at You' is about Eileen Fisher, 1980s fashion designer. Performance Artist' about concert pianist Yuja Wang. Malcolm interviews journalist Rachel Maddow for 'The Storyteller'.

Some essays have a nostalgic flair. 'Three Sisters' follows the owners of the Argosy book shop, a family business passed does the generations. 'The Emigre' covers George Jellinek's final taping of The Vocal Scene, his radio show broadcast for thirty-six years. Malcolm writes lovingly about a fellow migrant.   

I was intrigued by her essay 'The Art of Testifying', where Malcolm looks at the ways in which Supreme Court nominees have charmed Congress during their confirmation hearings. It was interesting to read about Justice David Souter (who passed away last week) and the Clarence Thomas hearings, which I remember well.

Malcolm's essays regarding authors and books are delightful, as she writes about Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Ted Hughes, and reviews Helen Garner's book The First Stone. 

One of my favourite essays is 'Socks' about Constance Garnett's translations of Anna Karenina and attempts by other translators to modernise the language have seen this classic novel loose some of the poetry and magic. 'Remember the Ladies' looks at Alexander McCall-Smith's No 1 Ladies Detective series, which Malcolm clearly loves.

Not all the essays work well for me. 'Comedy Central on the Mall' is one which kind of feels like you had to be there to get it. 'Pandora's Click' is a review of a book about email, which Malcolm originally published in 2007. Now it is terribly dated.

I have read a number of Malcolm's books (before I began blogging), including The Journalist and the Murderer (1990) and The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (1994). I admire her curiosity and intellect. She has a knack for finding interesting subjects for her sharp critical eye.

Pulitzer Prize Winners 2025

The 2025 Pulitzer Prize Winners have been announced with awards for Journalism and Books, Drama and Music. Let's take a look at the book award winners and finalists.

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 

Huzzah! Percival Everett was awarded the Pulitzer for his novel James - a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This is my favourite book of the past twelve months and I am so pleased that he was recognised. You can read my review here. Finalists were Rita Bullwinkel (Headshot), Stacey Levine (Mice 1961) and Gayl Jones (The Unicorn Woman).

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has won for Purpose, a play about an upper middle class African-American family related to a civil rights activist. Finalists were Cole Escola for Oh, Mary! and Itamar Moses for The Ally.

The Pulitzer Prize for History

Two winners share this year's award: Edda L Fields Black for her work Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid and Black Freedom During the Civil War; and Kathleen DuVal for Native Nations: A Millennium in North America. Seth Rockman was a finalist for Plantation Good: A Material History of American Slavery.  

The Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Jason Roberts was recognised for his biography of Carl Linnaeus and George-Louis de Buffon in Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life. Finalists were David Greenberg for John Lewis: A Life and Amy Reading for The World She Edited: Katherine S White at the New Yorker.   

The Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography

Tessa Hulls won for Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir - an account of three generations of Chinese women. Finalists were Alexandra Fuller for Fi: A Memoir of My Son and Lucy Sante for I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition.

The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Marie Howe was recognised for her collection of poetry New and Selected Poems. Finalists were An Authentic Life by Jennifer Chang and Bluff: Poems by Danez Smith,

The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction

Benjamin Nathans won for To the Success of our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement - an account of how courageous Russians fought for freedom. Finalists were Rollo Romig for I am on the Hit List: A Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India and Rachel Nolan's Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoption in Guatemala.

Want more? Watch the prize announcement on YouTube below.

The Safe Keep

Roisin O'Donnell's debut novel Nesting (2025) is an unflinching look at the supports in place for Irish women fleeing domestic violence.

Ciara lives in Dublin with her husband Ryan and two young daughters, Sophie aged four and Ella aged two. Late one afternoon, Ciara makes an immediate decision. She grabs a bunch of clothes off the line, puts her girls in the car and leaves. Ciara has to break free from the coercive control of her husband and no longer feels safe at home. She has spent two many sleepless nights worrying about his wrath. The problem is, throughout their marriage Ryan has successfully isolated Ciara. She has no job, no friends and lives away from her family. Where will she turn?

Ciara looks for support and finds the system is broken. She is put up in a room at Hotel Eden, a depressing dive with strict requirements and a constant fear of being evicted. While there are other families in the same hotel - a whole floor dedicated to temporarily housing the homeless - and she befriends a neighbour who can assist her when child care is needed, it is not a long term solution. 

Ryan bombards her with text messages - alternating between declarations of love which have her doubting her decision, and belittling threats which make her fearful. Her inner voice has her questioning her decisions and her will to stay the course.  

Meanwhile, Ciara is attempting to rebuild her life and provide stability for her children. She spends countless hours trapped in the bureaucracy, filling in forms, waiting, calling for updates. She engages a lawyer. But each time she takes a step forward, she is forced two steps back. With little money, she does what she can for her children. All she needs is for someone, somewhere, to give her a chance. 

The characters are well crafted. Ryan is a terrible villain, but deftly written to showcase the charm that would have attracted Ciara to him and make outsiders unaware of his abuse. Ciara is an interesting character. We learn her backstory, about her studies, travels and other paths she may have chosen. 

There were a couple of things that didn't resonate for me - like the storyline about Ryan's birds which was an unnecessary distraction. But overall, I found this a compelling story about a woman seeking a safe place to call home.

Nesting is a brilliant indictment of the social care system in Ireland, showcasing how the broken, bureaucratic system fails to support people most in need. I described the plot to someone who said it sounded depressing, but I actually found it hopeful, and surprisingly a gripping powerful read. 

Roisin O'Donnell's Nesting was longlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction. 

Carol Shields Prize Winner 2025

On 1 May 2025 the winner of the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction was announced. From the five shortlisted novels vying for this prize, the winner is Canisia Lubrin for Code Noir. 

The judges' citation is as follows:

“Code Noir contains multitudes. Its characters inhabit multi-layered landscapes of the past, present and future, confronting suffering, communion and metamorphosis. Canisia Lubrin’s prose is polyphonic; the stories invite you to immerse yourself in both the real and the speculative, in the intimate and in sweeping moments of history. Riffing on the Napoleonic decree, Lubrin retunes the legacies of slavery, colonialism and violence. This is a virtuoso collection that breaks new ground in short fiction.”

This debut fiction is based on a true set of fictional decrees passed by France's King Louis XIV in 1685, The fifty-nine articles defined the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. Lubrin's work is structured in fifty-nine linked fragments.

The winner receives $150,000 USD while the four shortlisted finalists receive $12,500 each. 

Revisiting David Copperfield

The first time I read Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1850) I was in high school. We had just read Great Expectations as part of the English curriculum and, having enjoyed that, I sought out other Dickens titles. Over the past thirty years or so I have read a number of his books, including Bleak House (while at law school), Oliver Twist and others. 

In 2023 I started a re-read of David Copperfield as preparation for Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead (2022). Accompanied by the audiobook, superbly performed by Richard Armitage, I read about two-thirds before getting distracted and putting this on hold. But this novel has been looming unfinished on my to-be-read pile for some time, so I decided to complete it.

David Copperfield is a bildungsroman which follows the life of young Davy as he grows to adulthood. His father died before he was born, so his mother raises him in a house called the Rookery with a beloved housekeeper Peggotty. When he is seven, Davy's mother remarries the dreadful Mr Murdstone. His stepfather is cruel and sends him to Salem House, a terrible boarding school. While he is away at school, his mother dies and Murdstone inherits the Rookery, leaving David with nothing.

Murdstone sends David to work for a wine merchant in London. While in London he befriends Wilkins Micawber, a loveable landlord who is sent to a debtor's prison. Each time David seems to make friends, his life is upturned. With the Micawbers away, David travels to Dover to find his great-aunt Betsey Trotwood. Betsey renames him Trotwood Copperfield ('Trot') and send him to school where he resides with the kindly Mr Wickfield, his daughter Agnes and the devious clerk Uriah Heep. 

After finishing his education, David apprentices as a lawyer, struggling to get by. He becomes reacquinted with old school friends James Steerforth and Tommy Traddles, and like Charles Dickens' himself, David becomes an author. Eventually David finds love and marries. 

At the outset David asks 'Will I be the hero of my own life?" and the next 600+ pages he answers this question. Written in the first person, the novel is told from David's point of view so we see his naiveté and struggles to understand the adults around him in his childhood.  

Revisiting David Copperfield again, I loved becoming reacquainted with the many delightful characters - devoted Clara Peggotty, donkey-obsessed Betsey Trotwood, evil Mr Murdstone, friendly Micawber, odious Uriah Heep, and charming Steerforth - which make it an enjoyable read. My affection for some of these characters, and the wonderful depiction of them by Richard Armitage, made for a lovely re-read.  However, the novel is very long, as it was initially published as monthly instalments, and there were parts which I found a quite dull and wished to skip over. 

After finishing the novel, I took great pleasure in listening to Sam Mendes' audio production of David Copperfield. This condensed dramatisation is voiced by Ncuti Gatwa (David), Helena Bonham Carter (Betsey Trotwood), Theo James (Steerforth), Indira Varma (Jane Murdstone), Richard Armitage (Murdstone), Toby Jones (Micawber), Jessie Buckley (Peggotty) and Jack Lowden (Uriah Heep). This is a wonderful alternative for people who want to experience the story of David Copperfield without all the superfluous dull bits! Kind of wish I had done this first - as I likely would not have re-read the whole book again!

Secret Love

Miles Franklin winning author Alex Miller's A Brief Affair (2022) was given to me as a gift for Christmas that year and has been on my to-be-read pile ever since. In an effort to read what I have before acquiring more, I grabbed this book off my shelf and read it over a couple evenings. 

  

From the outside, Dr Frances Egan has a perfect life. In her early forties, Frances lives on a semi-rural property outside Melbourne with her carpenter husband Tom and two children. She is on track to becoming a full professor at a Melbourne University, where she serves as Head of the School of Management at a regional campus. But Frances is discontented inside, feeling unfulfilled in her life and sensing that she may have missed opportunities along the way. On a work trip to Hefei China she does something completely out of character, and has a brief affair with a man she will never see again. Returning home she has changed, her mind often drifting back to the hotel room with her lover. Her children and husband have noticed this change in her and are unsure what to make of the woman who returned from this trip.

The office where Frances works is in a grand building that was once an asylum. The academic offices are in the cells which once held the unfortunate inmates. Frances feels a presence in Cell 16 and when she comes into possession of a diary belonging to Valerie Sommers, a resident of that room decades before, she feels an instant connection. As she reads Valerie's diary, and learns of her forbidden love for Jessie, Frances becomes obsessed with knowing what happened to her. 

Miller has crafted a fully formed character in Frances Egan. She is conflicted personally about her role as wife and mother. At work she faces bullying from her boss and undermining from her peers. She feels invisible to those around her, and her husband's adorations ('you are perfect') are dismissed as though he doesn't really see her. Egan cannot see herself and the ways in which she is an agent of what is happening in her life.

This is a slow, subtle book, meandering in unexpected ways. I never really knew where this story was going, and was just immersed in the moment. I found Valerie's story particularly fascinating and would have liked to know more about her. Indeed in some respects a more interesting novel lies within Valerie's tale....

I also appreciated the way Miller portrayed the treatment of mental health, through locating part of the story at a former institution. I understand he based his institution on the  Sunbury Lunatic Asylum which was used to house mentally ill patients from 1879 to the 1980s. In the 1990s it was taken over by Victoria University and used as a campus until 2011. 

Overall, this was a hopeful novel about the interior life of an ordinary woman by a master writer. 

Miller won the Miles Franklin Award for The Ancestor Game (1993) and Journey to Stone Country (2003).

World's End

We recently had unseasonably warm autumn days in Sydney where it felt as though summer had returned. To counter the climate, I reached for a book that has been on my shelf for many years, Penelope Lively's Heat Wave (1996) and was transported to World's End, a cluster of cottages in the rural Oxfordshire. 

Pauline Carter is a 55-year old book editor who has escaped London for the summer. She goes to her cottage at World's End and spends her days editing a medieval fantasy novel for an anxious debut writer. In the neighbouring cottage is her daughter Teresa, with her husband Maurice and their infant son Luke. Pauline sees her daughter and grandchild daily, and in observing her daughter's marriage she sees Theresa is set up for the same unhappiness she experienced.

Maurice is fifteen years older than Teresa and they seemingly have little in common. He is an egocentric writer working on a non-fiction book about tourism. Each weekend he is visited by his publisher and copy editor and they journey to various touristy places - county fairs, miniature worlds, a 'Robin Hood experience' - to fuel his work. He has little interest in his child and his work often takes him back to London.

Pauline can see the tell-tale signs of Maurice's infidelity. She experienced it with her own husband Harry, an academic who repeatedly had affairs. She wants to talk with Theresa about it, but can see no way to start this conversation. As she watches her daughter's marriage, she frequently casts her mind back to life with Harry - the arguments, compromises and promises. Pauline wants better for her daughter. While they don't speak of what is happening with Maurice, they have an unspoken understanding.  Maurice is also aware that Pauline is wise to his antics. 

As summer progresses, the tension increases between Pauline, Maurice and Theresa. Lively brilliantly captures the claustrophobia of being in a remote place as the walls come in - here the combines are thrashing the wheat fields that surround World's End, getting ever closer. The oppressive heat wave is the perfect back drop to the implosion that is destined for this family. As a late summer storm arrives, the novel concludes in a dramatic climax. 

I really enjoyed this novel. In just 215 pages, Lively has crafted a perfect depiction of simmering familial tension. 

Penelope Lively is the Booker Prize winning author of Moon Tiger (1987), The Road to Lichfield (1977), According to Mark (1984) and many more titles. I particularly like her non-fiction works. My review of Penelope Lively's memoir, Oleander Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived (1994) is also available on this blog. 

Celebrating 30 Years of The Women's Prize for Fiction

To celebrate 30 years of the Women’s Prize for Fiction there will be an Outstanding Contribution Award presented on 4 June 2025. This one-off literary honour will be bestowed on a living female author “in recognition of her body of work, her significant contribution to literature, and her strong advocacy for women.” To be eligible, authors must have been previously longlisted, shortlisted or winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the past thirty years and they must have published a minimum of five books.

I love this Women’s Prize for Fiction and this special prize is intriguing. I thought I would come up with my list of contenders. I have spent the past few days exploring the longlists of the past 30 years and have been reminded of how much reading joy I have had from these incredible authors. Over the 15 years I have been blogging, I have been heavily influenced by the longlist. 

There are some incredible authors here - Kate Atkinson, Siri Hustvedt, Elif Shafak, Hilary Mantel, Toni Morrison, Rachel Cusk, Pat Barker, Anne Tyler, Naomi Alderman, Marilynne Robinson, MJ Hyland, Maggie O'Farrell, Linda Grant, Kate Grenville, Andrea Levy, Madeline Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Strout, Carol Shields, Donna Tartt, Bernardine Evaristo, VV Ganeshananthan, Amy Tan and many, many more. 

When thinking about the criteria there are a lot of women who have made an outstanding contribution and I reckon the prize will go to one of the following:

• Ali Smith won the Women's Prize in 2015 for How to be Both. She was shortlisted twice, for Hotel World in 2001 and The Accidental in 2006, and longlisted for There but for the in 2012 and Summer in 2021. 

• Ann Patchett won the Women's Prize in 2002 for Bel Canto. She was shortlisted for The Magician's Assistant in 1998 and State of Wonder in 2012, and longlisted for The Dutch House in 2020.

• Anne Enright has never won, but has been on the list five times. She was longlisted for her Booker Prize winning novel The Gathering in 2008, and again in 2020 for Actress. She was shortlisted three times - for The Green Road in 2016, The Forgotten Waltz in 2012 and most recently for The Wren, The Wren in 2024.

• Barbara Kingsolver is the only person to have won this award twice. She won in 2010 for The Lacuna, and again in 2023 for Demon Copperhead. She was shortlisted in 1999 for The Poisonwood Bible and in 2013 for Flight Behaviour. 

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie won for Half of a Yellow Sun in 2007. She has also been shortlisted in 2004 for Purple Hibiscus and in 2014 for Americanah. She was longlisted in 2025 for Dream Count.

• Kamila Shamsie won in 2018 for Home Fire and was shortlisted twice, in 2009 for Burnt Shadows and in 2015 for A God in Every Stone. 

• Linda Grant won in 2002 for her novel When I Lived in Modern Times. She was shortlisted in 2017 for The Dark Circle, and longlisted twice - in 1997 for The Cast Iron Shore and 2008 for The Clothes on Their Backs.

• Margaret Atwood has never won, but has made the list five times. She was shortlisted for Alias Grace in 1997, for the Booker Prize winning The Blind Assassin in 2001, and for Oryx and Crake in 2004. She was longlisted for Hag-Seed in 2017 and for Maddaddam in 2014.

• Sarah Waters has been shortlisted three times - for Fingersmith in 2002, The Night Watch in 2006 and The Paying Guests in 2015. She was longlisted for The Little Stranger in 2010

• Zadie Smith won the Women's Prize for On Beauty in 2006. She was shortlisted on three other occasions - for White Teeth in 2000, The Autograph Man in 2006 and for N-W in 2013.

If I had to narrow my shortlist of ten down, I reckon the award will either go to Margaret Atwood in recognition of her influential lifetime of writing or to Barbara Kingsolver who is so beloved by the Women's Prize. Cannot wait to find out which incredible author is recognised for outstanding contribution.

Want more?

I have compiled a list of all the longlisted books over the past thirty years below with links to any blog posts I have written about them and my reviews of longlisted books. 

2025 Longlist

• Aria Aber - Good Girl (Shortlist)  
  
• Kaliane Bradley - The Ministry of Time
• Jenni Daiches - Somewhere Else
• Saraid de Silva – Amma
• Karen Jennings - Crooked Seeds
• Miranda July - All Fours (Shortlist)
• Laila Lalami - The Dream Hotel
• Sanam Mahloudji - The Persians (Shortlist)
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Dream Count
• Roisin O'Donnell – Nesting
• Rosanna Pike - A Little Trickerie
• Rose Ruane - Birding
• Lucy Steeds - The Artist
• Elizabeth Strout - Tell Me Everything (Shortlist)
• Yael van der Wouden - The Safekeep (WINNER)
• Nussaibah Younis – Fundamentally (Shortlist)

2024 Longlist

• 
  Maya Binyam – Hangman
• Effie Black - In Defence of the Act
• Alicia Elliott - And Then She Fell
• Anne Enright - The Wren, The Wren (Shortlist)
• Kate Foster - The Maiden
• VV Ganeshananthan - Brotherless Night (WINNER)
• Kate Grenville - Restless Dolly Maunder (Shortlist)
• Isabella Hammad - Enter Ghost (Shortlist)
• Claire Kilroy - Soldier Sailor (Shortlist)
• Mirinae Lee - 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster
• Karen Lord - The Blue, Beautiful World
• Chetna Maroo - Western Lane
• Peace Adzo Medie – Nightbloom
• Megan Nolan - Ordinary Human Failings
• Aube Rey Lescure - River East, River West (Shortlist)
• Pam Williams - A Trace of Sun

2023 Longlist

• NoViolet Bulawayo – Glory 
• Jennifer Croft – Homesick
• Jacqueline Crooks - Fire Rush (Shortlist)
• Camilla Grudova - Children of Paradise
• Natalie Haynes - Stone Blind
• Louise Kennedy – Trespasses (Shortlist)
• Barbara Kingsolver - Demon Copperhead (WINNER)
• Sophie Mackintosh - Cursed Bread
• Elizabeth McKenzie - The Dog of the North
• Priscilla Morris - Black Butterflies (Shortlist)
• Maggie O'Farrell - The Marriage Portrait (Shortlist)
• Sheena Patel - I'm a Fan
• Cecile Pin - Wandering Souls
• Laline Paull – Pod (Shortlist)
• Parini Shroff - The Bandit Queens
• Tara M Stringfellow - Memphis

2022 Longlist

• Lisa Allen-Agnostini - The Bread the Devil Knead (Shortlist)
• Lulu Allison - Salt Lick
• Kirsty Capes – Careless
• Catherine Chidgey - Remote Sympathy
• Miranda Cowley Heller - The Paper Palace
• Rachel Elliott – Flamingo
• Louise Erdich - The Sentence (Shortlist)
• Violet Kupersmith - Build Your House Around My Body
• Meg Mason - Sorrow and Bliss (Shortlist)
• Charlotte Mendelson - The Exhibitionist
• Ruth Ozeki - The Book of Form and Emptiness (WINNER)
• Leone Ross - This One Sky Day
• Elif Shafak - The Island of Missing Trees (Shortlist)
• Maggie Shipstead - Great Circle (Shortlist)
• Dawnie Walton - The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
• Morowa Yejide - Creatures of Passage

2021 Longlist

• Brit Bennett - The Vanishing Half (Shortlist)
  
• Clare Chambers - Small Pleasures 
• Susanna Clarke – Piranesi (WINNER)
• Amanda Craig - The Golden Rule
• Naoise Dolan - Exciting Times
• Avni Doshi - Burnt Sugar 
• Dawn French - Because of You
• Claire Fuller - Unsettled Ground (Shortlist)
• Yaa Gyasi - Transcendent Kingdom  (Shortlist)
• Cherie Jones - How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (Shortlist)
• Raven Leilani - Luster 
• Patricia Lockwood - No One is Talking About This (Shortlist)
• Annabel Lyon – Consent
• Kathleen MacMahon - Nothing But Blue Sky 
• Torrey Peters - Detransition, Baby
• Ali Smith - Summer

2020 Longlist

• Deepa Anappara - Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line  
  
• Taffy Brodesser-Akner - Fleishman is in Trouble 
• Candice Carty-Williams - Queenie 
• Angie Cruz - Dominicana  (Shortlist)
• Anne Enright – Actress
• Bernardine Evaristo - Girl, Woman, Other (Shortlist)
• Luan Goldie - Nightingale Point
• Natalie Haynes - A Thousand Ships (Shortlist)
• Jing-Jing Lee - How We Disappeared 
• Claire Lomnardo - The Most Fun We Ever Had
• Hilary Mantel - The Mirror and the Light (Shortlist)
• Edna O’Brien – Girl
• Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet (WINNER)
• Jenny Offill – Weather (Shortlist)
• Ann Patchett – The Dutch House
• Jacqueline Woodson - Red at the Bone

2019 Longlist

• Pat Barker - The Silence of the Girls (Shortlist)
  
• Yvonne Battle-Felton - Remembered 
• Oyinkan Braithwaite - My Sister, the Serial Killer (Shortlist)
• Melissa Broder - The Pisces 
• Anna Burns - Milkman  (Shortlist)
• Akwaeke Emezi - Freshwater 
• Diana Evans - Ordinary People  (Shortlist)
• Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott - Swan Song 
• Tayari Jones - An American Marriage (WINNER)
• Lillian Li - Number One Chinese Restaurant 
• Sophie van Llewyn - Bottled Goods 
• Valeria Luiselli - Lost Children Archive 
• Bernice L. McFadden - Praise Song for the Butterflies 
• Madeline Miller - Circe (Shortlist)
• Sarah Moss - Ghost Wall 
• Sally Rooney - Normal People

2018 Longlist

• Nicola Barker - Happy
• Elif Batuman – The Idiot (Shortlist)
• Joanna Cannon – Three Things About Elsie
• Charmaine Craig – Miss Burma
• Jennifer Egan – Manhattan Beach
• Imogen Hermes Gowar – The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock (Shortlist)
• Jessie Greengrass - Sight  (Shortlist)
• Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
• Meena Kandasamy - When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife  (Shortlist)
• Fiona Mozley - Elmet 
• Arundhati Roy - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
• Sarah Schmidt - See What I Have Done 
• Rachel Seiffert - A Boy in Winter 
• Kamila Shamsie - Home Fire (WINNER)
• Kit de Waal - The Trick to Time 
• Jesmyn Ward - Sing, Unburied, Sing (Shortlist)

2017 Longlist

• Ayobami Adebayo - Stay With Me (Shortlist) 
  
• Naomi Alderman - The Power (WINNER)
• Margaret Atwood – Hag Seed
• Emma Flint - Little Deaths 
• Mary Gaitskill - The Mare
• Linda Grant - The Dark Circle (Shortlist)
• Eimear McBride - The Lesser Bohemians 
• Fiona Melrose - Midwinter 
• C E Morgan - The Sport of Kings (Shortlist)
• Yewande Omotoso - The Woman Next Door
• Heather O’Neill - The Lonely Hearts Hotel 
• Sarah Perry – The Essex Serpent
• Annie Proulx - Barkskins
• Gwendoline Riley - First Love (Shortlist)
• Madeleine Thien - Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Shortlist)
• Rose Tremain - The Gustav Sonata

2016 Longlist

• Kate Atkinson – A God in Ruins   
  
• Shirley Barret – Rush Oh!
• Cynthia Bond – Ruby (Shortlist)
• Geraldine Brooks – The Secret Chord
• Becky Chambers - The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet 
• Jackie Copleton - A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding 
• Rachel Elliott – Whispers Through a Megaphone
• Anne Enright – The Green Road (Shortlist)
• Petina Gappah – The Book of Memory
• Vesna Goldsworthy – Gorsky
• Clio Gray – The Anatomist’s Dream
• Melissa Harrison – At Hawthorn Time
• Attica Locke – Pleasantville
• Lisa McInerney– The Glorious Heresies (WINNER)
• Elizabeth McKenzie – The Portable Veblen (Shortlist)
• Sara Novic – Girl at War
• Julia Rochester – The House at the Edge of the World
• Hannah Rothschild – The Improbability of Love (Shortlist)
• Elizabeth Strout – My Name is Lucy Barton
• Hanya Yanagihara – A Little Life (Shortlist)

2015 Longlist

• Rachel Cusk - Outline (Shortlist) 
  
• Lissa Evans - Crooked Heart 
• Patricia Ferguson - Aren't We Sisters? 
• Xiaolu Guo - I Am China
• Samantha Harvey- Dear Thief 
• Emma Healey - Elizabeth is Missing 
• Emily St John Mandel - Station Eleven 
• Grace McCleen - The Offering 
• Sandra Newman - The Country of Ice Cream Star 
• Heather O'Neill - The Girl Who Was Saturday Night 
• Laline Paull - The Bees  (Shortlist)
• Marie Phillips - The Table of Less Valued Knights 
• Rachel Seiffert - The Walk Home 
• Kamila Shamsie - A God in Every Stone  (Shortlist)
• Ali Smith - How to be Both  (WINNER)
• Sara Taylor - The Shore 
• Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread (Shortlist)
• Sarah Waters - The Paying Guests  (Shortlist)
• Jemma Wayne - After Before 
• PP Wong - The Life of a Banana

2014 Longlist

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Americanah (Shortlist) 
  
• Margaret Atwood – MaddAddam
• Suzanne Berne – The Dogs of Littlefield
• Fatima Bhutto – The Shadow of the Crescent Moon
• Claire Cameron – The Bear
• Lea Carpenter – Eleven Days
• M.J. Carter – The Strangler Vine
• Eleanor Catton – The Luminaries
• Deborah Kay Davies – Reasons She Goes to the Woods
• Elizabeth Gilbert – The Signature of All Things
• Hannah Kent – Burial Rites (Shortlist)
• Rachel Kushner – The Flamethrowers
• Jhumpa Lahiri – The Lowland (Shortlist)
• Audrey Magee – The Undertaking (Shortlist)
• Eimear McBride – A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing (WINNER)
• Charlotte Mendelson – Almost English
• Anna Quindlen – Still Life with Bread Crumbs
• Elizabeth Strout – The Burgess Boys
• Donna Tartt – The Goldfinch (Shortlist)
• Evie Wyld – All The Birds, Singing

2013 Longlist

• Kitty Aldridge - A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
  
  
  
• Kate Atkinson - Life After Life (Shortlist)
• Ros Barber - The Marlowe Papers
• Shani Boianjiu - The People of Forever Are Not Afraid 
• Deborah Copaken Kogan - The Red Book
• Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl
• Sheila Heti - How Should a Person Be? 
• A.M. Homes - May We Be Forgiven (WINNER)
• Barbara Kingsolver - Flight Behavior (Shortlist)
• Hilary Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies (Shortlist)
• Bonnie Nadzam - Lamb 
• Emily Perkins - The Forrests 
• Michele Roberts - Ignorance 
• Francesca Segal - The Innocents 
• Maria Semple - Where’d You Go Bernadette (Shortlist)
• Elif Shafak - Honour
• Zadie Smith - N-W (Shortlist)
• M.L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans
• Carrie Tiffany - Mateship with Birds 
• G. Willow Wilson - Alif the Unseen

2012 Longlist

• Karen Altenberg - Island of Wings
  
• Aifric Campbell - On the Floor
• Leah Hager Cohen - The Grief of Others
• Emma Donoghue - The Sealed Letter
• Esi Edugyan - Half Blood Blues (Shortlist)
• Anne Enright - The Forgotten Waltz (Shortlist)
• Roopa Farooki - The Flying Man
• Jaimy Gordon - Lord of Misrule
• Georgina Harding - Painter of Silence (Shortlist)
• Jane Harris - Gillespie and I
• A.L. Kennedy – The Blue Book
• Francesca Kay - The Translation of the Bones
• Madeline Miller - The Song of Achilles (WINNER)
• Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus
• Cynthia Ozick - Foreign Bodies (Shortlist)
• Ann Patchett - State of Wonder (Shortlist)
• Ali Smith - There but for the
• Anna Stothard - The Pink Hotel
• Stella Tillyard - Tides of War
• Amy Waldman - The Submission

2011 Longlist

• Leila Aboulela - Lyrics Alley  
  
• Carol Birch - Jamrach’s Menagerie
• Emma Donoghue - Room (Shortlist)
• Tishani Doshi - The Pleasure Seekers
• Louise Doughty - Whatever You Love
• Jennifer Egan - A Visit from the Goon Squad
• Aminatta Forna - The Memory of Love (Shortlist)
• Tessa Hadley - The London Train
• Emma Henderson - Grace Williams Says It Loud (Shortlist)
• Samantha Hunt - The Seas
• Joanna Kavenna - The Birth of Love
• Nicole Krauss - Great House (Shortlist)
• Wendy Law-Yone - The Road to Wanting
• Tea Obreht - The Tiger’s Wife (WINNER)
• Julie Orringer - The Invisible Bridge
• Anne Peile - Repeat it Today with Tears
• Karen Russell - Swamplandia!
• Lola Shoneyin - The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives
• Roma Tearne - The Swimmer
• Kathleen Winter - Annabel (Shortlist)

2010 Longlist

• Rosie Alison - The Very Thought of You (Shortlist)  
  
• Eleanor Catton - The Rehearsal 
• Clare Clark - Strange Lands
• Amanda Craig - Hearts and Minds
• Roopa Farooki - The Way Things Look to Me
• Rebecca Gowers - The Twisted Heart
• M.J. Hyland - This Is How
• Sadie Jones - Small Wars
• Barbara Kingsolver - The Lacuna (WINNER)
• Leila Lalami - Secret Son
• Andrea Levy - The Long Song
• Attica Locke - Black Water Rising (Shortlist)
• Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (Shortlist)
• Maria McCann - The Wilding
• Nadifa Mohamed - Black Mamba Boy
• Lorrie Moore - A Gate at the Stairs (Shortlist)
• Monique Roffey - The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (Shortlist)
• Amy Sackville - The Still Point
• Kathryn Stockett - The Help
• Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger 

2009 Longlist

• Debra Adelaide - The Household Guide to Dying 
  
• Gaynor Arnold - Girl in a Blue Dress
• Lissa Evans - The Finest Hour and a Half
• Bernardine Evaristo - Blonde Roots
• Ellen Feldman - Scottsboro (Shortlist)
• Laura Fish - Strange Music
• V.V. Ganeshananthan - Love Marriage
• Allegra Goodman - Intuition
• Samantha Harvey - The Wilderness (Shortlist)
• Samantha Hunt - The Invention of Everything Else (Shortlist)
• Michelle de Kretser - The Lost Dog
• Deirdre Madden - Molly Fox’s Birthday (Shortlist)
• Toni Morrison - A Mercy
• Gina Ochsner - The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight
• Marilynne Robinson – Home (WINNER)
• Preeta Samarasan - Evening is the Whole Day
• Kamila Shamsie - Burnt Shadows (Shortlist)
• Curtis Sittenfeld - American Wife
• Miriam Toews - The Flying Troutmans
• Ann Weisgarber - The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

2008 Longlist

• Anita Amirrezvani - The Blood of Flowers 
  
• Stella Duffy - The Room of Lost Things
• Jennifer Egan - The Keep
• Anne Enright - The Gathering
• Linda Grant - The Clothes on Their Backs
• Tessa Hadley - The Master Bedroom
• Nancy Huston - Fault Lines (Shortlist)
• Gail Jones – Sorry
• Sadie Jones - The Outcast (Shortlist)
• Lauren Liebenberg - The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam
• Charlotte Mendelson - When We Were Bad (Shortlist)
• Deborah Mogach - In the Dark
• Anita Nair – Mistress
• Heather O’Neill - Lullabies for Little Criminals (Shortlist)
• Elif Shafak - The Bastard of Istanbul
• Dalia Sofer - The Septembers of Shiraz
• Scarlett Thomas - The End of Mr. Y
• Carol Topolski - Monster Love
• Rose Tremain - The Road Home (WINNER)
• Patricia Wood - The Lottery (Shortlist)

2007 Longlist

• Clare Allan - Poppy Shakespeare 
  
• Rachel Cusk - Arlington Park (Shortlist)
• Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss (Shortlist)
• Patricia Ferguson - Peripheral Vision
• Margaret Forster - Over
• Nell Freudenberger - The Dissident
• Rebecca Gowers - When To Walk
• Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (Shortlist)
• Jane Harris - The Observations (Shortlist)
• M J Hyland - Carry Me Down
• Lori Lansens - The Girls
• Lisa Moore - Alligator
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun (WINNER)
• Catherine O’Flynn - What Was Lost
• Stef Penney - The Tenderness of Wolves
• Deborah Robertson - Careless
• Rachel Seiffert - Afterwards
• Jane Smiley - Ten Days in the Hills
• Anne Tyler - Digging to America (Shortlist)
• Melanie Wallace - The Housekeeper

2006 Longlist

• Leila Aboulela - Minaret  
  
• Lorraine Adams - Harbor
• Naomi Alderman – Disobedience
• Jill Dawson - Watch Me Disappear
• Helen Dunmore - House of Orphans
• Philippa Greggory - The Constant Princess
• Alice Greenway - White Ghost Girls
• Gail Jones - Dreams of Speaking
• Nicole Krauss - The History of Love (Shortlist)
• Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black (Shortlist)
• Sue Miller - Lost in the Forest
• Joyce Carol Oates - Rape a Love Story
• Marilynne Robinson - Gilead
• Curtis Sittenfeld – Prep
• Ali Smith - The Accidental (Shortlist)
• Zadie Smith - On Beauty (WINNER)
• Carrie Tiffany - Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Shortlist)
• Célestine Hitiura Vaite - Frangipani
• Sarah Waters - The Night Watch (Shortlist)
• Meg Wolitzer - The Position

2005 Longlist

• Kate Atkinson - Case Histories  
  
• Clare Clark - The Great Stink
• Kira Cochrane - Escape Routes for Beginners
• Joolz Denby - Billie Morgan (Shortlist)
• Anita Desai - The Zigzag Way
• Christine Dwyer Hickey -Tatty
• Patricia Ferguson - It So Happens 
• Melanie Finn - Away From You
• Jane Garham - Old Filth (Shortlist)
• Sue Gee - The Mysteries of Glass
• Miranda Hearn - Nelson’s Daughter
• Ingrid Hill - Ursula, Under
• Sheri Holman - The Mammoth Cheese (Shortlist)
• Marina Lewycka - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Shortlist)
• Nell Leyshon - Black Dirt
• Michelle Lovric - The Remedy 
• Maile Maloy - Liars and Saints (Shortlist)
• Joyce Carol Oates - The Falls
• Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin (WINNER)
• Patricia Wastvedt - The River

2004 Longlist

• Monica Ali - Brick Lane  
  
• Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake (Shortlist)
• Rupa Bajwa - The Sari Shop
• Stevie Davies - Kith and Kin
• Stella Duffy - State of Happiness
• Maggie Gee - The Flood
• Sarah Hall - The Electric Michelangelo
• Shirley Hazzard - The Great Fire (Shortlist)
• Zoë Heller - Notes on a Scandal
• Jhumpa Lahiri - The Namesake
• Andrea Levy - Small Island (WINNER)
• Joan London - Gilgamesh
• Dinah Küng - A Visit From Voltaire
• Sarah May - The Internationals
• Toni Morrison - Love
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Purple Hibiscus (Shortlist) 
• Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveller’s Wife
• Gillian Slovo - Ice Road (Shortlist)
• Rose Tremain - The Colour (Shortlist)
• Anne Tyler - The Amateur Marriage

2003 Longlist

• Bella Bathurst - Special  
  
• Sandra Cisneros - Caramelo 
• Janet Davey - English Correspondence
• Anne Donovan - Buddha Da (Shortlist)
• Lucy Ellmann - Dot in the Universe
• Sonya Hartnett - What the Birds See 
• Siri Hustvedt - What I Loved
• Liz Jensen - War Crimes for the Home 
• Nora Okja Keller - Fox Girl 
• Haven Kimmel - The Solace of Leaving Early 
• Shena Mackay - Heligoland (Shortlist)
• Valerie Martin - Property (WINNER)
• Edna O’Brien - In the Forest 
• Julie Otsuka - When the Emperor Was Divine
• Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones 
• Carol Shields - Unless (Shortlist)
• Zadie Smith - The Autograph Man (Shortlist)
• Donna Tartt - The Little Friend (Shortlist)
• Louise Welsh - The Cutting Room 
• Crystal E. Wilkinson - Water Street

2002 Longlist

• Kitty Aldridge - Pop  
  
• Anna Burns - No Bones (Shortlist)
• Jennifer Clement - True Story Based on Lies 
• Stevie Davies - The Element of Water
• Helen Dunmore - The Siege (Shortlist)
• Maggie Gee - The White Family (Shortlist)
• Lesley Glaister - Now You See Me
• Joanne Harris - Five Quarters of the Orange
• Chloe Hooper - A Child’s Book of True Crime (Shortlist)
• Elizabeth McCracken - Niagara Falls All Over Again
• Sue Monk Kidd - The Secret Life of Bees
• Joyce Carol Oates - Middle Age 
• Kathy Page - The Story of My Face
• Ann Patchett - Bel Canto (WINNER)
• Nani Power - Crawling at Night
• Lily Prior - La Cucina
• Anita Rau Badami - The Hero’s Walk
• Emma Richler - Sister Crazy
• Rachel Seiffert - The Dark Room
• Sarah Waters - Fingersmith (Shortlist)

2001 Longlist

• Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin (Shortlist) 
  
• Trezza Azzopardi - The Hiding Place
• Jill Dawson - Fred & Edie (Shortlist)
• Helen DeWitt - The Last Samurai 
• Meaghan Delahunt - In the Blue House 
• Leslie Forbes - Fish, Blood and Bone 
• Esther Freud - The Wild
• Laurie Graham - Dog Days, Glenn Miller Nights
• Kate Grenville - The Idea of Perfection (WINNER)
• Josephine Humphreys - Nowhere Else on Earth
• Rosina Lippi - Homestead (Shortlist)
• Sena Jeter Naslund - Ahab’s Wife 
• Jayne Anne Phillips - MotherKind 
• Danzy Senna - From Caucasia, With Love
• Jane Smiley - Horse Heaven (Shortlist)
• Ali Smith - Hotel World (Shortlist)
• Amy Tan - The Bonesetter’s Daughter
• Jeanette Winterson - The PowerBook

2000 Longlist

• Leila Aboulela - The Translator 
  
• Judy Budnitz - If I Told You Once (Shortlist)
• Tracy Chevalier - Girl with a Pearl Earring
• Anita Desai - Fasting, Feasting
• Barbara Ewing - A Dangerous Vine
• Jo-Ann Goodwin – Danny Boy
• Linda Grant - When I Lived in Modern Times (WINNER)
• Sunetra Gupta - A Sin of Color
• Laura Hird - Born Free
• A L Kennedy - Everything You Need
• Julia Leigh - The Hunter
• Alice McDermott - Charming Billy
• Gina B Nahai - Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith
• Éilís Ní Dhuibhne - The Dancers Dancing (Shortlist)
• Christine Pountney - Last Chance Texaco
• Jane Rogers- Island
• Shauna Singh Baldwin - What the Body Remembers
• Zadie Smith - White Teeth (Shortlist)
• Elizabeth Strout - Amy and Isabelle (Shortlist)
• Rebecca Wells - Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Shortlist)

1999 Longlist

• Beryl Bainbridge - Master Georgie 
  
• Andrea Barrett - The Voyage of the Narwhal
• Suzanne Berne - A Crime in the Neighborhood (WINNER)
• Julia Blackburn - The Leper’s Companions (Shortlist)
• Marilyn Bowering - Visible Worlds (Shortlist)
• Catherine Chidgey - In a Fishbone Church
• Julia Darling - Crocodile Soup
• Maureen Duffy - Restitution
• Jane Hamilton - The Short History of a Prince (Shortlist)
• Jackie Kay – Trumpet
• Oonya Kempadoo - Buxton Spice
• Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible (Shortlist)
• Elizabeth Knox - The Vintner’s Luck
• Karla Kuban - Marchlands
• Hilary Mantel - The Giant, O’Brien
• Jacquelyn Mitchard - The Most Wanted 
• Toni Morrison - Paradise (Shortlist)
• Barbara Neil - A History of Silence 
• Nora Ojka Keller - Comfort Woman 
• Marly Swick - Evening News

1998 Longlist

• Kirsten Bakis - Lives of the Monster Dogs (Shortlist) 
  
• Sandra Benítez - Bitter Grounds 
• Lucy Ellmann - Man or Mango?
• Esther Freud - Summer at Gaglow
• Cristina Garcia - The Aguero Sisters
• Nadine Gordimer – The House Gun 
• Kathryn Heyman - The Breaking
• Michelle Huneven - Round Rock
• Liz Jensen - Ark Baby
• Christina Koning - Undiscovered Country
• Pauline Melville - The Ventriloquist’s Tale (Shortlist)
• Drusilla Modjeska - The Orchard
• Ann Patchett - The Magician’s Assistant (Shortlist)
• Deirdre Purcell - Love Like Hate Adore (Shortlist)
• Anna Quindlen - Black and Blue
• Michèle Roberts - Impossible Saints
• Anita Shreve - The Weight of Water (Shortlist)
• Carol Shields - Larry’s Party (WINNER)
• Jane Urquhart - The Underpainter
• Louisa Young - Baby Love

1997 Longlist

• Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace (Shortlist)
  
• Beryl Bainbridge - Every Man For Himself
• Joan Brady - Death Comes for Peter Pan
• Chitra Divakaruni - The Mistress of Spices 
• Joan Didion - The Last Thing He Wanted
• Linda Grant - The Cast Iron Shore
• Siri Hustvedt - The Enchantment of Lily Dahl
• Jamaica Kincaid - The Autobiography of My Mother
• Laurie R King - With Child
• Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall On Your Knees
• Deirdre Madden - One By One in the Darkness (Shortlist)
• Jane Mendelsohn - I Was Amelia Earhart (Shortlist)
• Anne Michaels - Fugitive Pieces (WINNER)
• Annie Proulx - Accordion Crimes (Shortlist)
• Leone Ross - All the Blood is Red
• Manda Scott - Hen’s Teeth (Shortlist)
• Paullina Simons - Red Leaves
• Meera Syal - Anita and Me
• Jeanette Winterson - Gut Symmetries
• Mary K Zuravleff - The Frequency of Souls

1996 Longlist - The First Year of the Women's Prize

• Pat Barker -The Ghost Road  
  
• Julia Blackburn - The Book of Colour (Shortlist) 
• A.J. Close - Official and Doubtful
• Lindsey Collen - The Rape of Sita
• Isla Dewar - Keeping Up With Magda
• Helen Dunmore - A Spell of Winter (WINNER)
• Penelope Fitzgerald - The Blue Flower
• Lesley Glaister - The Private Parts of Women
• Stephanie Grant - The Passion of Alice
• Liz Jenson - Egg Dancing
• A.L. Kennedy - I Am So Glad 
• Pagan Kennedy – Spinsters (Shortlist) 
• Andrea Levy - Never Far from Nowhere
• Mary Morrissey - Mother of Pearl
• Jane Rogers - Promised Lands
• Elspeth Sandys - River Lines
• Cathleen Schine - The Love Letter
• Amy Tan - The Hundred Secret Senses (Shortlist)
• Anne Tyler - Ladder of Years (Shortlist)
• Marianne Wiggins - Eveless Eden (Shortlist)