Shortlisted for Booker Prize. Look forward to reading it. Will start a bookring when I have finished it.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1331330,00.html

I liked the writing style and the way the class distinctions were depicted and I found it a quick and easy read( some skimmimg required!) but I definitely don't think it should have been a prize winner. Not saying more, it's going to be a bookring...interested to see what others think.

Now a ring. On its way to...
scism
jubby
charmedwitch23
ravenbear
funkybamboozle
Blackkeybash
claudinec
saki

Received in the mail today. It's thicker than I thought, and newer-looking! I'll start delving into it this weekend.

I have a major case of the guilts regarding this book. It has been sitting on my bedside table for over a month now, and I still haven't gotten to it. Other things in my life keep taking precedence over reading my bookring books *gasp*. I think I'd better do the noble thing and send this one on untouched. My apologies EDDI for a rather dull start to a bookring. Let's hope it can only improve from here on in!

Just in from a nice afternoon at the beach (it's Saturday), to find this little parcel sitting on my doorstep...!

Scism, your powers are incredible.

I will read and pass on in the next week.

Thank you so much for passing this one my way EDDI.

RELEASE NOTES:

Will try and pass onto Charmedwithch23 today.

Hmm, well this is a supprise, I'm not sure how I got listed in this ring, I dont remember requesting to join, reading the back it doesnt really excite me, and its kinda huge. I have 5 ahead of it so if its wanted urgently by others I'll send it on unread, otherwise it can wait and I'll give it a go. I guess funkybamboozle was skipped by request.

Sent to ravenbear today. This book needs to go to funkybamboozle after Ravenbear.

This book was waiting for me on my return from a trip away. Seeing as the trip was fraught with endless hours of waiting for late planes, being bussed to other places due fog at airports etc...I could have done with a book this thick beforehand!I have a huge pile of books waiting to be read, and if it looks like I will stall this ring I will send it on to funkybamboozle unread.

I guess this one has died...

This was sent on its way to claudinec this morning. I hope she will enjoy it.I guess I enjoyed it, but it was a bit Mills & Boon for me...though it definitely WASN'T Mills & Boon, but the story line didn't grab me at all, but the writing and language were enjoyable.

Received in the mail. I will try to read this before I go overseas in early January.

I rushed through this book with the sense that I had only a few days to get through it before I left the country. I thought it was an engaging portrait of privileged hedonists in the 1980s -- not the kind of people that I'm very familiar with, though they're not completely alien to me. The main character, Nick, seemed like a kid who'd found himself out of his depth, and I could relate to that.

Not sure who is next on the list but I'll try to move it on before I leave.

Posted to saki yesterday. Funkybamboozle isn't accepting bookrings and Blackkeybash didn't respond to my PM.

Received in the mail today. Thanks, claudinec.

I finished this book a couple of days ago, but still need some time to decide what to write about it. It moved me in ways I cannot yet articulate.

I was initially sceptical about this book, having seen some lukewarm responses from other readers here and elsewhere. And I nearly gave up myself during the first couple of chapters. But, the book drew me in and ultimately moved me a great deal.

There was something missing for me at the heart of the book - the fascination with The Lady (Margaret Thatcher) and her Tory government, which the author seemed to assume the reader would share but I (and many other readers it seems) did not. But, once I accepted this as an essential element of the narrative, without trying to understand it myself, it didn't hinder my enjoyment of the book too much.

I have read elsewhere on BC that other readers found the characters hard to 'care' for. And I agree they were rather underdeveloped. Rachel seemed to be defined solely by her good manners, Catherine by a description of her symptoms and Toby was especially blurry. For this reason, I really liked the 'wellie-whanging' scene for its sudden revelations about Gerald.

The strength of the book, I felt, was its descriptive power. The different social milieus through which Nick moved, his emotional states and sensory experiences were very well evoked. I have never been to France, but as I read I had as strong a sense of the light, the heat and the dusty landscape as I did of the emotional claustrophobia of a family on holiday together. The close of the book is particularly powerful - not for the narrative trick that brings about the denouement - but for the description of Nick's emotional state, his vision of what his life has been and may become.

As to whether this book should have won the Booker Prize, I can't say, as I have not read the other books in competition that year. It is certainly the kind of weighty tome that does win such competitions.

I have since read reviews which describe the novel as a 're-imagining of the 1980s'. This is a fairly exaggerated claim; it didn't feel like a definitive statement on the decade to me. But it did capture something of my own teenage years when one's parents really asked questions such as 'Is Boy George a man or a woman?', it was de rigueur to wear your grandfather's shabby, old dinner jacket to a twenty first birthday party, and the world was just beginning to know about AIDS. I would be interested to revisit this book in 20 years time and see if it has the same emotional impact for me then.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this book, EDDI. This has been my most satisfying bookray/ring so far.

EDDI has left it to me to continue the bookray or release the book. Please pm me if you would like me to release it to you.

RELEASE NOTES:

I'm glad to say that three people have expressed interest in reading this book, so it will continue as a bookray for a little while yet. The bookrayers are (in the order I received their messages):

LizzieM
kzel
Alice2623663

I have sent the book to LizzieM today.

Enjoy!

Just arrived this morning. I've been meaning to read this for some time, so thank you for ringing it!
Will pass on to kzel ASAP

I really enjoyed this great big brick of a book. Took me awhile to get through, but worth it in the end! I really enjoyed seeing this era of British politics as seen through the eyes of the differnet social classes.

On to Kzel!

Picked up from the post office on Saturday (27/05/06). I have a few books to read ahead of this, but will try and get to it as soon as possible. Sorry in advance if I do delay this ray a little...

RELEASE NOTES:

Sending onto alice2623663

Arrived safely today. Yay, thanks!

Animal Division book exchange

Third floor book exchange

found this at the YHA book exchange while dropping off about 15 of my own books. Can't say I have ever heard of it again but it grabbed me in the the sense that it was the only English book on the shelf, haha. Will read it and release in the next 10 days.