The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Booker Prize for Fiction
>
2020 Booker Longlist Dynamic Rankings
Mod
My adjusted weightings method:
Pos, Book, Average, Adjusted, Count, First Places, STD
1, Apeirogon by Colum McCann, 3.14, 2.42, 37, 12, 2.20
2, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, 2.67, 2.44, 30, 9, 1.75
3, The Mirror & The Light by Hilary Mantel, 3.73, 2.97, 22, 10, 2.19
4, Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward, 4.19, 3.26, 26, 3, 1.97
5, Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, 5.39, 4.78, 23, 1, 2.53
6, The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste, 5.76, 5.31, 25, 2, 2.79
~~~~~~
7, How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang, 6.03, 5.41, 33, 1, 3.03
8, Real Life by Brandon Taylor, 7.61, 6.78, 28, 0, 3.47
9, This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga, 8.04, 7.57, 27, 0, 3.76
10, Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze, 8.64, 7.95, 14, 1, 3.15
11, Redhead by The Side of the Road by Anne Tyler, 8.27, 7.95, 30, 1, 4.03
12, Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, 8.89, 8.32, 28, 0, 3.95
13, The New Wilderness by Diane Cook, 9.09, 8.64, 22, 0, 3.87
Paul-style aggregate of comparisons
Pos, Book, Average, Relative ranking, Count, First Places
1, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, 2.67, 138, 30, 9
1, Apeirogon by Colum McCann, 3.14, 138, 37, 12
3, The Mirror & The Light by Hilary Mantel, 3.73, 87, 22, 10
3, Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward, 4.19, 87, 26, 3
5, The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste, 5.76, 23, 25, 2
6, Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, 5.39, 18, 23, 1
~~~~~~
7, How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang, 6.03, -8, 33, 1
8, Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze, 8.64, -55, 14, 1
9, Real Life by Brandon Taylor, 7.61, -62, 28, 0
10, This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga, 8.04, -74, 27, 0
11, Redhead by The Side of the Road by Anne Tyler, 8.27, -93, 30, 1
12, The New Wilderness by Diane Cook, 9.09, -97, 22, 0
13, Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, 8.89, -102, 28, 0
Mod
2 Apeirogon
3 Shuggie Bain
4 Love and Other Thought Experiments
5 The Shadow King
6 How Much of These Hills is Gold
7 The New Wilderness
8 This Mournable Body
9 Burnt Sugar
10 Real Life
11 Such a Fun Age
12 Redhead by the Side of the Road
13 Who They Was
1. Love and Other Thought Experiments2. Apeirogon
7. Burnt Sugar
11. The Mirror & The Light
12. Such a Fun Age
13. Who They Was
..
---1. Colum McCann - Apeirogon
2.
3. C Pam Zhang - How Much of These Hills is Gold
4.
5. Brandon Taylor - Real Life
6. Sophie Ward - Love and Other Thought Experiments
7.
8.
9.
10.
11. Kiley Reid - Such A Fun Age
12. Anne Tyler - Redhead By the Side of the Road
13.
3. Shuggie Bain5. Love and Other Thought Experiments
6. Apeirogon
8. The Shadow King
9. This Mournable Body
10. Real Life
11. Who We Was
12. tie
The New Wilderness
Such a Fun Age
3 of the 4 books I read in the last 12 months and thought Booker winner (the other being "Hamnet")1 excellent discovery
6 shortlist contenders but all with clear flaws that means I would not like to see them win
3 "what were they thinking of longlisting this?"
1 Shuggie Bain (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
2 Apeirogon
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
3 The Mirror and The Light
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Love and Other Thought Experiments
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 How much of These Hills is Gold
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
6 Shadow King
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
7 This Mournable Body
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
8 Burnt Sugar
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
9 Who They Was
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
10 Real Life
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
11 Such a Fun Age
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
12 Redhead by the Side of the Road
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
13 The New Wilderness
(https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
1. Burnt Sugar2. This Mournable Body
3. Love and Other Thought Experiments *
4. Such a Fun Age
5. Redhead by the Side of the Road
6.
7. Real Life
8. How Much of These Hills is Gold
9. The Shadow King *
10. Apeirogon
11.
12. The New Wilderness *
13. Shuggie Bain *
* added after shortlist announcement
1. Redhead by The Side of the Road 2. How much of These Hills is Gold
3. This mournable body
4. The new wilderness
.
.
10. Such a Fun Age
I've only read a couple, but I'll put my two in order thus far and update if I get to any more. 1) Apeirogon
2) The Shadow King
1. Apeirogon2. The Mirror and the Light
3. Shuggie Bain
4. Love and Other Thought Experiments
5. The Shadow King
6. Red Head by the Side of the Road
7. How Much of These Hills is Gold
8. This Mournable Body
9. Such a Fun Age
10. The New Wilderness
11. Real Life
12. Burnt Sugar
13.
1. Apeirogon2. Love and Other Thought Experiments
3. Burnt Sugar
4. Who they was
5. Shuggie Bain
6. How Much of these Hills is Gold
7. Redhead by the Side of the Road
8. The New Wilderness
9. Such a Fun Age
10. The Shadow King
11. Real Life
12. This Mournable Body
1) The Mirror and the Light2) Love and Other Thought Experiments
3) Apeirogon
4)
5)
6) This Mournable Body
7)
8)
9)
10) How Much of These Hills is Gold
11)
12)
13)
1. Shuggie Bain2. Love and Other Thought Experiments
3. Apeirogon
4.
5. How Much of These Hills is gold
6.
7.
8. Redhead by the Side of the Road
9, This Mournable Body
10 Real Life
11.
12.
13.
1. Apeirogon2.
3. Burnt Sugar
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. Redhead by The Side of the Road
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
1. Apeirogon2. Shuggie Bain
3. Red Head by the Side of the Road
1. Apeirogon (5 stars)2. -
3. Love and Other Thought Experiments (4 stars)
4. Shuggie Bain (4 stars)
These are my final votes for the longlisted books. I hope all three will be shortlisted. I'll likely read The Shadow King if it reaches the shortlist.
1. Apeirogon (5*)2. Shuggie Bain (5*)
3. Love and Other Thought Experiments (4*)
4. Who They Was (4*)
5. How Much Of These Hills Is Gold (4*)
6. The Shadow King (3*)
7. This Mournable Body (3*)
8. Such A Fun Age (2*)
9. The New Wilderness (2*)
1. Shuggie Bain2. Burnt Sugar
3. Redhead By The Side Of The Road
4. How Much Of These Hills Is Gold
5.
1.2.
3. Real Life
4. Burnt Sugar
5.
6.
7.
8. The Redhead at the Side of the Road
9.
10.
11. Such a Fun Age
12.
13.
I'm claiming this spot and will list the books as I start them and rank them later.1. The Mirror & the Light - completed September 2
2. Apeirogon - completed August 25
3.
4. The Shadow King - completed August 5
5.
6.
7.
8. How Much Of These Hills Is Gold - completed August 22
9.
10. Redhead By the Side of the Road - completed August 28
11.
12.
13.
1. How Much of These Hills is Gold2. The Shadow King
3.
4.
5.
6. Such a Fun Age
7. This Mournable Body
8.
1) Apeirogon2)
3)
4) Love and Other Thought Experiments
5)
6)
7) Real Life
8)
9) This Mournable Body
10) The New Wilderness
11) Such a Fun Age
12) Redhead at the Side of the Road
13)
I will update as I go along.
1. Shuggie Bain2. The Mirror and the Light
3. Love and Other Thought Experiments
4. Apeirogon
5. Real Life
6. The Shadow King
7. Burnt Sugar
8. Such a Fun Age
9. Who They Was
10. Redhead by the Side of the Road
11. This Mournable Body
12. How Much of These Hills is Gold
13. The New Wilderness
1. The Mirror and the Light 5*2. Shuggie Bain 4*
3. Burnt Sugar 4*
4. The Shadow King 4*
4. Apeirogon
5. Love and Other Thought Experiments 4*
6.
7.
8.
9. How Much of These Hill is Gold 3*
10. The Redhead on the Side of the Road 3*
11. The New Wilderness 3*
1. The Mirror and the Light2. Shuggie Bain
3. Love and Other Thought Experiments
4. How Much Of These Hills Is Gold
5. Real Life
6. This Mournable Body
7..The Shadow King
8. Redhead by the Side of the Road
9. Such a Fun Age
10.
11.
12.
13. The New Wilderness (DNFed, not for me, got to P237 so gave it a good go).
I aim to get through as many of the longlist as possible, so will be interesting to see how they shift around in my list.
[2nd August update] Shadow King goes to 2 for now. Just ahead of How Much of These Hills is Gold by a fraction. For me the characters and setting of Shadow King while having that mythic resonance felt more grounded and coherent (something I value). The writing in Hills is Gold is just stunning but characters became for me a little unmoored in the midst of the magically-realist writing.
How I rank these. For me the Booker is a particular kind of prize with a quite wide following. I have friends who read some literary fiction each year, but make time for Booker novels, especially shortlisted. They are looking for something that they recognise as literary and takes them out of their comfort zones a little but not to Ducks Newburyport or even Milkman levels of stylistic and formal experimentation. They feel cheated and excluded by such works and I get that. Although I find Milkman an outstanding winner, a brave choice that I adore (many of my friends detest and don't get it). They are looking for something a little more challenging that the Costa say, they expect that. So I try and keep this in mind as that readership I think is important for the Booker. While I reveal in formally experimental works that push the boundaries, not likely to appear high in my Booker list (even if in my own reviewing I may give them 5 stars). If too many 'experimental' works as it were feature highly I think many of these readers will view it as all too 'pretentious' and exclusionary and will give up on it.
I think this is one of the reasons Mantel does so well. She is right in the wheelhouse, the literary zone, for many of these readers.
Just how I will rank based on the function of the Booker in the literary fiction marketplace.
Mod
2.
3.
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5.
6.
Currently Reading: Redhead by the Side of the Road
..
1. Love and Other Thought Experiments
2. How Much of These Hills Is Gold
3. Apeirogon
4. The Shadow King
5. Such a Fun Age
6. Shuggie Bain
7. Burnt Sugar
8. The Mirror & the Light
9. This Mournable Body
10. Real Life
11. Redhead by the Side of the Road
--
-
1
2 Apeirogon (review)
3 Who They Was (review)
4 How Much of These Hills Is Gold (review)
5 Shuggie Bain (review)
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Love and Other Thought Experiments (review)
13
reply | flag *
1. Apeirogon2. This Mournable Body
3. Shuggie Bain
4. How Much of These Hills is Gold
5. The Mirror and the Light
6. Such A Fun Age
7. Love and Other Thought Experiments
8. Redhead by the Side of the Road
9. The Shadow King
10. Burnt Sugar
11. The New Wilderness
12. Real Life
13. Who They Was
1. The Mirror and the Light2. Real Life
3.
4.
5.
6. Love and Other Thought Experiments
7. How Much of These Hills is Gold
8.
9. Burnt Sugar
10. Redhead by the Side of the Road
11. Such a Fun Age
12.
13. This Mournable Body
Updated as I read.1. The Shadow King 4*
2. Burnt Sugar 4*
3. Love & Other Thought Exp. (still reading)
4. Shuggie Bain 3*
5. Mirror & Light (dnf / not for me but I can see that it should be on the shortlist, hence no 5)
6. Redhead (idem)
7. New Wilderness 2*
8. Such a Fun Age 1*
9. Mournable Body 1*
10. How Much of These Hills (child narrators almost never work for me / dnf)
12. Real Life (overwrought & overwritten / dnf)
11. Who They Was (boring / dnf)
13. Apeirogon (dnf / skim read the last third)
Planning to read the entire longlist. Will update as I go.1, The Mirror and the Light
2. Apeirogon
3. Redhead by the Side of the Road
4. Shuggie Bain
5. Love and Other Thought Experiments
6.
7.
8. How Much of These Hills is Gold
9.
10. The Shadow King
11. Burnt Sugar
12. Such a Fun Age
13. Mournable Body
1. The Mirror and the Light completed............sob2. Apeirogon
3. Shuggie Bain 45% read
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Will unlikely read the whole list, but I’m reserving space just in case that ends up happening.1. Apeirogon, 4.5*
2. Shuggie Bain, 4.5*
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. This Mournable Body, 3*
9. Real Life, 3*
10.
11. The Shadow King, 2*
12.
13.
1. Love and Other Thought Experiments2. Shuggie Bain
3. Apeirogon
4. How Much of These Hills is Gold
5. Burnt Sugar
6. The Mirror and the Light
7. Real Life
8. This Mournable Body
9. Shadow King
10. Redhead by the Side of the Road
11. Such a Fun Age
12. New Wilderness
13.
1. The Mirror and the Light2. Real Life
3. How Much of These Hills is Gold
4. Burnt Sugar
5.
6.
7. Shuggie Bain
8. The Shadow King
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
1. Shuggie Bain2. Apeirogon
3.
4.
5. How Much of These Hills Is Gold
6.
7.
8.
9. The Shadow King
10. Redhead by the Side of the Road
11.
12.
13.
1. Shuggie Bain2. The Shadow King
3. Burnt Sugar
4.The New Wilderness
5. Apeirogon
6. Who They Was
7. This Mournable Body
8.
9. How Much of These Hills is Gold
10.Such A Fun Age
11. Love and Other Thought Experiments
12. Real Life
13. The Mirror and The Light (the only one I couldn't finish so has to be ranked last so far)
With 2 to go and likely only 1 more completed in time I don't expect any changes at the top. I won't read the Tyler though on past expereince I would liely place her around 6-8. Who They Was is next.
1.2. Burnt Sugar
3. Apeirogon
4.
5.
6. Love and Other Thought Experiments
7. Real Life
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9.
10.
11. The New Wilderness
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13.
1.2.
3.
4.
5. This Mournable Body
6. Real Life
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8.
9.
10. How Much of These Hills is Gold
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12. The New Wilderness
13.
1. Shuggie Bain2. The Mirror and the Light
3. Apeirogon
4.
5.
6. Real Life
7.
8.
9. The Shadow King
10. How Much of These Hills Is Gold
11.
12.
13.
**** Who They Was
***
Redhead by the Side of the Road
Burnt Sugar
Such A Fun Age
**
The New Wilderness
This Mournable Body
1. Apeirogon2. Shuggie Bain
3. The Shadow King
4. The New Wilderness
5. Real Life
6. How Much of These Hills is Gold
7. Redhead by the Side of the Road
8. This Mournable Body
9. Such a Fun Age
10. The Mirror and the Light (DNF)
11. Who They Was
1.
2. Shuggie Bain (@70%)
3. The Shadow King
4.
5. The New Wilderness (@50%)
6. How Much of These Hills Is Gold
7.
8.
9. Apeirogon
10.
11.
12.
13. This Mournable Body
1. Shuggie Bain2. Apeiragon
3.
4. Love and Other Thought Experiments
5.
6.
7.
8. Such a Fun Age
9. The New Wilderness
10.
11.
12.
13. Redhead by the Side of the Road
1. The Shadow King2. Love and Other Thought Experiments
3. Apeirogon
4. The Mirror and The Light
5. Shuggie Bain
6. Burnt Sugar
7. How Much of These Hill is Gold
8. Real Life
9. Such a Fun Age
10. The New Wilderness
11. Redhead by the Side of the Road
12. This Mournable Body
13. Who They Was
3. How Much of These Hills is Gold 9. Real Life
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The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
Apeirogon (other topics)Redhead by the Side of the Road (other topics)
Such a Fun Age (other topics)
Shuggie Bain (other topics)
Love and Other Thought Experiments (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Colum McCann (other topics)Sophie Ward (other topics)
Hilary Mantel (other topics)
Douglas Stuart (other topics)
C Pam Zhang (other topics)
More...
The idea of dynamic rankings is to provide a measure of the collective opinion of the group on the relative merits of the books on a list. This is not intended to have any great significance or scientific value, and the more members participate, the more interesting the tables get. Please don't see this as a competition - there are always some people who aim to read a whole list and others who are happy just to sample one or two. To participate, just list the books in order of preference (best first). You can number them if you like, if not we will assign the first book 1, second 2, third 3 etc. Please do not include books that you have not started reading.
In order to make it easier for us to collate the numbers for the league tables, please try to stick to one post per member (you can use edit comment to update your lists) and refrain from general chat.
I normally try to update the league tables at least once a day until activity tails off - the master spreadsheets are on my personal laptop so I am reluctant to touch them during office hours.
Adjusted weightings table (my method)
This method has evolved and been refined over the last few years to address some perceived unfairnesses in simple averaging. The basic principle is that each member's list numbered 1,2,3,...,n where n is the number of books ranked is adjusted so that the ranked books are positioned evenly on a scale from 0 to x-1 where x is the number of books in the list (x=13 so 0 to 12 for a Booker longlist). We also allow users to specify their predicted positions in which case we will assume that no adjustment is needed. The first table is sorted by the average of these adjusted weightings.
Aggregate of comparisons table (Paul's method)
This is an alternative league table which is sorted using a different algorithm. Each member and book is assigned an integer (which may be negative) which is the number of books the member has ranked lower than the book in question minus the number ranked higher. The overall table takes the sum of these numbers.
These are the 13 books:
this one.