It's almost Booker time ...

Next Thursday, the judges announce the winner of the 2020 Booker prize - complete with a guest appearance from Barack Obama - and in case this wasn't exciting and suspense-filled enough, on Monday, we're running the third SPS 'Predict the Booker' event. We can't promise any former US Presidents, but Mrs Cummings will be hosting, Mr Breslin will be compèring, and six Pauline readers - Nikolas Boyd-Carpenter, George Davies, Hari Collins, Monty Brown, Kiyo-Brandreth-Stroud and Joachim Sciamma - will make a case for each of the novels on the shortlist. Then YOU - the online audience - decide ... 

Previous 'Predict the Bookers' have been held in the library: this year, it's our first ever 'live' broadcast, so tune in and cast your vote: registration details can be found here.  We've been wrong two years in a row - who knows, maybe 2020 will be third time lucky!

If you'd like to prepare for the event, and aren't entirely sure you'll get through all six novels over the weekend, here's a quick catch up on the books in question, and their authors, courtesy of those nice people at the Booker website.  

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook

'A daring, passionate and terrifying novel about a mother’s battle to save her daughter in a world ravaged by climate change.

Bea's five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the over-developed metropolis they call home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die, but there is only one alternative - joining a group of volunteers in the Wilderness State. This vast expanse of unwelcoming, untamed land is untouched by mankind. Until now. Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, Bea and Agnes slowly learn how to survive on this unpredictable, often dangerous land. But as Agnes embraces the wild freedom of her new existence, Bea realises that saving her daughter’s life means losing her in a different way.  At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood, and what it means to be human, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary, compelling novel for our times.'

The Booker judges thought this was 'wonderfully imagined and written - a tense, future-shock novel that's also a tender exploration of a mother-daughter relationship under extreme pressure.' You can read an interview with Diane Cook here.  Current odds: 5/1

This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga

'In this tense and psychologically charged novel, Tsitsi Dangarembga channels the hope and potential of one young girl and a fledgling nation to lead us on a journey to discover where lives go after hope has departed.

Here we meet Tambudzai, living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare and anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job. At every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.'

The Booker judges said: 'This Mournable Body drew an immediate reaction, like a sharp intake of breath from all of us ... The breakdown of the protagonist and the breakdown of a country are inextricably linked in this arresting novel from a mercurial writer.'  You can read an interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga here.  Current odds: 3/1

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

'In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents), and spent years chasing after a dishevelled, homeless 'artist' - all with her young child in tow. Now she is forgetting things, mixing up her maid's wages and leaving the gas on all night, and her grown-up daughter is faced with the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her.

This is a love story and it is a story about betrayal. But not between lovers - between mother and daughter. Sharp as a blade and laced with caustic wit, Avni Doshi tests the limits of what we can know for certain about those we are closest to, and by extension, about ourselves.'

The Booker judges found this 'an utterly compelling read [which] examines a complex and unusual mother-daughter relationship with honest, unflinching realism - sometimes emotionally wrenching, but also cathartic, written with poignancy and memorability.'  You can read an interview with Avni Doshi here. Current odds: 10/1

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

'Ethiopia. 1935. With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid. Her new employer, Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilise his strongest men before the Italians invade.

Hirut and the other women long to do more than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope, it is Hirut who offers a plan to maintain morale. She helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms. But how could she have predicted her own personal war, still to come, as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers?  The Shadow King casts light on the women soldiers written out of African and European history. It is a captivating exploration of female power, and what it means to be a woman at war.' 

The Booker judges thought this 'a meticulously researched and lyrical novel, a beautifully constructed historical fiction of women in war.  We were drawn into the story of Hirut, the lead character, who has, until now,  never been heard.  It is a brave, noble, gripping book that would not have been written at any other point in history.'  You can read an interview with Maaza Mengiste here.  Current odds: 11/4

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

'1981. Glasgow. The city is dying. Poverty is on the rise. People watch the lives they had hoped for disappear from view. Agnes Bain had always expected more. She dreamed of greater things: a house with its own front door, a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect – but false – teeth). When her philandering husband leaves, she and her three children find themselves trapped in a mining town decimated by Thatcherism. As Agnes increasingly turns to alcohol for comfort, her children try their best to save her. Yet one by one they have to abandon her in order to save themselves.

It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. But Shuggie has problems of his own: despite all his efforts to pass as a ‘normal boy’, everyone has decided that Shuggie is ‘no right’. Agnes wants to support and protect her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her, including her beloved Shuggie. Laying bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride, Shuggie Bain is a blistering and heartbreaking debut, and an exploration of the unsinkable love that only children can have for their damaged parents.'

The Booker judges were 'bowled-over by this first novel, which creates an amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love ... a vivid glimpse of a marginalized, impoverished community in a bygone era of British history. It's a desperately sad, almost hopeful examination of family and the destructive power of desire.'  You can read an interview with Douglas Stuart here.  Current odds: 2/1

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

'Deftly zooming in and out of focus, Real Life is a deeply affecting story about the emotional cost of reckoning with desire, and overcoming pain.

Wallace has spent his summer in the lab breeding a strain of microscopic worms. He is four years into a biochemistry degree at a lakeside Midwestern university, a life that’s a world away from his childhood in Alabama. His father died a few weeks ago, but Wallace didn’t go back for the funeral, and he hasn’t told his friends – Miller, Yngve, Cole and Emma. For reasons of self-preservation, he has become used to keeping a wary distance even from those closest to him. But, over the course of one blustery end-of-summer weekend, the destruction of his work and a series of intense confrontations force Wallace to grapple with both the trauma of the past, and the question of the future.'

The Booker judges thought this debut novel was 'a fresh take on the age-old 'campus novel' tradition, providing a deeply painful, nuanced account of microaggressions, abuse, racism, homophobia, trauma, grief and alienation' and 'admired the vivid ways the book evokes daily, repetitive action as well as memory and fantasy to get at its profound central question: what is 'real life' anyway??'  You can read an interview with Brandon Taylor here.  Current odds: 6/1

So - which one will it be? The Booker bookies seem to think it's a shoo-in for Shuggie, but will our Pauline readers and online audience of book-lovers back Bain? Tune in on Monday to see whether Nikolas, George, Hari, Monty, Kiyo and Joachim can persuade you to support their chosen novel, and then cast your own vote -  and on Thursday, we'll see whether the Booker judges agree ...