Eric Karl Anderson

the very first uh gold prize uh winner for this award was Paul Murray's um absolutely fantastic novel The beasting

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabriel zevin

I'm sure you know Patrick NES from um his incredibly powerful book a monster calls

I think it was uh the mermaid of black conch um by by Monique rafy that year which is another fantastic novel

the story kind of sounds like uh ishiguro the unconsoled um which is one of my favorite novels of all time

it uses the technique um very similar um to his previous novel the spinning heart

we picked as our winner the Essex serpent by Sara Perry which um is a great novel

we ultimately picked as our winner um Blue Boy by Rakesh satel

I think one of the best debut novels that I read last year was maps of our spectacular bodies by Maddie Mortimer

there is wild houses by Colin Barrett and I loved reading this story

The Seven moons of Mali Almeida by Shehan karuna talaka

our ultimate winner uh was a brief history of seven killings by Marlin James which is an absolutely tremendous novel

one of the nominees was Sebastian Berry's novel days without end which is an incredible uh historical novel

the book that I really advocated for was this short Story collection with a very long title in account of the decline of the great a according to one who saw it

I wasn't sent one of the books that I had already read which was love after love by ingred ped

there is super infinite by Catherine Rondell uh which also won the Bailey Gifford prize um for non-fiction last year and I talked about that award in a previous video and I've also talked before about how much I enjoyed this really creative and new kind of biography of the poet John Dunn

then there's a book called larger than in Orange by Lucy Burns which is uh sort of part Memoir part poetry part non-fiction narrative I'm following on the time before and after in abortion when uh describing the experience of the the author who finds that um you know the the actually going through this experience is so different than the sort of larger political issues and being involved with these larger political issues surrounding um abortion um beforehand um how going through that completely changed our point of view of the the world and um so it describes and follows that that experience and um really emotional detail

then there is a novel um called Oxblood by Tom Ben which takes place in the city of Manchester in the mid 80s and is about a family the men of this family were involved in the city's um sort of criminal underground um worlds but those men have died they've Left Behind different generations of women who are still feeling the effects of these men's criminal activities and and the the impact that they have made upon the city um so it follows their different lives their different tribulations as they are trying to continue their lives forward and so that sounds really interesting

there is the hypocrite by Joe hamia and this novel um follows the story of a father and daughter

glorious exploits by Feria lenon and this novel follows two Potters uh in 412 BC in Sicily

levitation for beginners by Susanna Dunn and this novel is set in the early 1970s

first off there is bird Boy by Katherine brutton and this the story of an adolescent boy who's grieving

a book that I've been so eager to get to is Donald Ryan's new novel heartbe at peace

Chronicles of a lizard Nobody by Patrick NES and this story follows a group of Misfit animal students at a school