UPDATED, 7th October: Justice has been done. Hurray!
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...is tonight, and I'm sure I won't be the only blogger tuning in to the radio or the television to find out the winner with bated breath. I've read five of the six shortlisted authors this year, which probably means that the book I've missed (Simon Mawer's The Glass Room) will win. Personally I think the field is incredibly strong this year, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a historical fiction junkie. Yes, Mantel, Byatt, Waters and Foulds have written great historical fiction (in Mantel's case, magisterial) but their novels also represent great fiction generally.
I don't think you'll be surprised to hear that Wolf Hall is my favourite to win. I feel quite strongly about it - it feels necessary. I read an interview with Hilary Mantel in the Guardian in which she described her despair when a particular novel failed to make the Prize shortlist several years ago. She wept because it seemed impossibly unfair. I think I would feel the same; although there would be less weeping and more raging on my part. Saying that, there is no book I have read that I absolutely do not want to win. I think I would be disappointed if The Quickening Maze took it, simply because I feel Foulds can and should do better. For the rest, I'd cheer for Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger (her best book to date I think) if it won; and I can see the real merits of both A.S. Byatt and J.M. Coetzee. But my pleasure would be strained, because I would be thinking of that week reading Wolf Hall and the intense, continuing and probably permanant pleasure it gave me.
Here are the books I've read in order of preference:
1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
3/4. The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt tied with Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
5. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
We shall see if the judges agree with me...
~~Victoria~~