New podcasts: Series dishes on the highs and lows of the Booker Prize
A new podcast from one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards will rekindle listeners’ love of reading. It’s like a writers festival in your headset.
Never have time to read or finish a book? Who does these days when spare time is ruthlessly consumed by notifications and Netflix.
Fortunately one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards has released a podcast that will rekindle listeners’ love of reading.
When is a book not a book but a podcast? When it’s an episode of the newly released The Booker Prize series.
Hosted by novelist and critic Jo Hamaya and broadcaster James Walton, the new series reappraises previous winners of the £50,000 awards, revisits shortlists and interviews authors.
Hamaya and Walton also indulge in a healthy amount of gossip, chatting about some of the most controversial moments in the awards’ 54-year history.
It’s like a writers festival in your headset but without the queues and requisite travel.
The hosts are charming and unpretentious, a rare feat among writers.
Their discussions of Booker Prize winners is more conversational than criticism, like a chat with friends who really want to tell you about the latest book they’re reading.
The first episode explores the controversial topic of the best book to ever win or be short-listed for the Booker Prize award.
In contention are Patricia Lockwood’s No One is Talking About This, and The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe.
This reviewer picks The Butcher Boy, short-listed for The Booker in 1992, for literary prowess over the less than happy feelings generated by McCabe’s dark story of a young boy’s descent into violent fantasy as his family falls apart.
“The tragedy of this book is you actually can sympathise with Brady to various extents,” says Hamaya.
“About halfway through I found myself wondering just how far my sympathy could go because this book really is horror after horror.”
The podcast is also running a book club for listeners and recommends a new book every month.
The second episode concerns The Vegetarian by South Korean writer Han Kang, which was the first winner of the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.
The novel explores shame and desire and caused quite a controversy when it won after being translated from Korean into English.
How far can a translator go before they’re just writing over another person’s work?
Ask Deborah Smith, who translated Kang’s work into English and copped a fair bit of heat in South Korea.
The third episode asks why Philip Pullman’s fantasy epic The Amber Spyglass from The Dark Materials trilogy is the only children’s book ever nominated for The Booker Prize.
The podcast production is basic and the jazz elevator style music sounds like it was ripped from a free online audio library.
Review recommends The Booker Prize for both book lovers and aspiring readers.
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