The Richard and Judy Shortlist 2008
From TheBookbag
This is the shortlist with the dates of the programmes. As soon as we have the books reviewed we'll put the links in for you!
- 9 January
Khaled Hosseini
Purple prose over vivid description, soap opera over genuine emotional depth. Bookbag didn't enjoy this any more than it enjoyed its predecessor, The Kite Runner. Its weighty setting belies what is in actuality, a pleasant but incredibly light and schmaltzy plot-driven read.
- 16 January
Danny Scheinmann
Leo Deakin wakes up in a hospital somewhere in South America, his girlfriend Eleni is dead and Leo doesn't know where he is or how Eleni died. He blames himself for the tragedy and is sucked into a spiral of despair. But Leo is about to discover something which will change his life forever. Cinematic and brimming with raw emotions, it's the debut from a remarkable new writer.
- 23 January
Katharine McMahon
In 1854 Nurse Rosa Barr defies Florence Nightingale to travel to Balaklava. Most likely to appeal to ladies, this is an absorbing tale of love and betrayal set against the backdrop of the Crimean War.
- 30 January
R J Ellory
A brilliant evokation of place offsets some self indulgent writing and over-use of literary devices in this story of the multiple murders of children in the mid-twentieth century. Bookbag thinks of this as an 'if there's nothing better' book.
- 6 February
Patrick Gale
An artist with manic depression, her Quaker husband, and their four children do not have the happiest of times in this book, but the read is surprisingly interesting and highly recommended.
- 13 February
Joshua Ferris
A collective of advertising men encounter a hard task in a comedy of work-place errors that is sparkling while falling flat on its face with a gross misjudgement. Our reviewer didn't know whether to recommend the book or not!
- 20 February
Mark Slouka
A beautifully written, sombre, elegiac and occasionally mesmerising if somehow self-indulgent novel of love and grief, fiction and fact, history and memory. Recommended, unless you really like your stories to start at the beginning and end at the end and to be clear as to what, actually, happened.
- 27 February
Lloyd Jones
Beautifully written with not a word wasted, Great Expectations meets tropical island in this look at the love of reading, the terrors of war, post-colonialism and personal integrity. Highly, highly recommended.
- 5 March
Tim Butcher
Recreating Stanley’s epic expedition through the Congo & along its eponymous river, Tim Butcher explores the modern country and its history. It's an enthralling rendition of what is effectively the rape of a nation and deserves to be read, re-read and pondered upon.
- 12 March
Peter Ho Davies
In Wales, in 1944, Captain Rotheram, a Jewish refugee working for British Intelligence arrives to interrogate Rudolf Hess. In a prison camp near a remote Snowdonian village a young German soldier struggles with the shame of his surrender.
