This year s Booker longlist is so sensible it feels almost radical
For once, the judges have ignored experimental fiction and plumped for novels that are - shock, horror - a pleasure to read
27 July 2021 • 12:01am
Down to the last 13: (from l to r) Kazuo Ishiguro, Damon Galgut, Rachel Cusk, Maggie Shipstead and Nadifa Mohamed
Credit: Telegraph designers
Phew. The Booker longlist has been announced for 2021 and after years of technical trickery and an over-willingness to engage in identity politics, we have a longlist of 13 novels that is so sensible, it feels almost radical.
There are no graphic novels, no 200-page poems, no brain-scrambling first-person narratives. Instead, here is a longlist featuring several big hitters – Kazuo Ishiguro; Damon Galgut; Richard Powers; Rachel Cusk – that combines meaty contemporary issues with novels that are, whisper it, by and large a pleasure to read. Perhaps emboldened by the relief and approval that met last year’s winner, the
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About seven years ago I took up yoga. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a smug yoga column, where I make anyone who hasn’t ever done a downward dog feel a failure in terms of both flexibility and spiritual enlightenment. Bear with me.
Styling: Holly Elgeti. Make-up: Nicky Weir using Hourglass Beauty. Hair: Alex Szabo at Carol Hayes using T3 Haircare. Dress, Temperley London. Earrings, Motley x Scott Wilson. Rings, Daisy Jewellery, Pilgrim
The reason I started yoga was because I was going through IVF and it was one of the things that people recommended as a means of relaxation. Any time you’re in the unremittingly stressful situation of trying for a baby, you will be told to avoid stress. For me, that seemed impossible, so I decided to outsource my relaxation to other people.