For those of us who are avid book readers, nothing comes close to an hour well spent reading your favorite novel in your pajamas with some snacks right around the corner before going to bed. However, many complain about the diminishing quality and content of books that have been coming up. A lot of that has to do with us being still stuck up on old classics and not accepting fresh content. The following article might persuade some individuals to try different contents such as those in the following six books which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022.
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Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
Glory is a novel about colonization and uprising told through the eyes of animals, written by Zimbabwean NoViolet Bulawayo. The completely fictitious land in the book is ruled by a flamboyant horse that turns into a tyrant and reigns for 40 years. According to Booker, the book is a political fable with parallels to Orwell’s “Animal Farm, Zimbabwe, and the fate of many African nations.”
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Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
Treacle Walker is the effort of Alan Garner, an 88-year-old English writer who is the oldest novelist ever to be nominated for the Booker Prize. Joe Coppock, a boy recuperating from illness, and Treacle Walker, a junk dealer and healer, are the book’s central characters. Their encounter kicks off a dream-like story that helps Joe to comprehend his surroundings. According to Booker, the novel explores myth, folklore, and the “fluidity of time.”
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The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a novel by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka set in Colombo in 1990. Maali Almeida, a war correspondent, has died and has only seven moons to notify his nearest and dearest to a cache of photos uncovering graft and violence that will shake the nation. Booker describes the novel as a surreal vision of Sri Lanka’s more than 20-year civil war.
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Small things like these by Claire Keegan
Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan, is set in an Irish town in 1985 and is “dense with moral themes,” according to Booker. According to the Irish Independent newspaper, the plot revolves around the treatment of women in a church-run mother-and-baby home. The plot revolves around Bill Furlong, a local coal and timber merchant who delivers to the convent, and his struggle to get the attention of the community.
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The Trees by Percival Everett
Percival Everett’s novel The Trees is set in Mississippi, where detectives are examining a series of gruesome murders. The plot is based on the real-life racist murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black youth, in 1955. According to Booker, the novel is a “powerful condemnation of racism and police violence.”
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Oh William by Elizabeth Strout
Oh William! by American author Elizabeth Strout follows fictitious protagonist Lucy Barton, a renowned writer living in New York. When she re-connects with her first husband, William, the pair unravels the tale of their life together, including love, grief, and family secrets. According to Booker, this is a novel about an average individual with “probing psyc