For being shortlisted is, in many ways, a reverse recommendation. There have been some truly awful books shortlisted and many winners have just failed to cut the mustard. This year seems to be no different.
I recently got hold of Anne Tyler's "A Spool of Blue Thread" and "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara. I gave up the first of these after about 70 pages and I suspect I won't even get that far on the second. I couldn't engage with the characters and really neither are representative of the kind of literature I am interested in.
I will try to read the winner - A Brief History of Seven Killings - but apparently it includes passages in Jamaican patois. I tried to read a previous winner which featured Glasgow dialect. I'll keep an open mind on the latest winner and report back when I have either read it or given up on it. Just one comment at the moment. If it's called a short history why does it run to over 700 pages?