Update 30/3/23 The shortlist was announced today:
- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
- The Trees: A Novel by Percival Everett
- Paradais by Fernanda Melchor, tr. Sophie Hughes. See Stu’s review
- Marzahn, Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp, tr Jo Heinrich. See Stu’s review
- Love Novel by Ivana Sajko tr. Mima Simić
- Em by by Kim Thúy tr. Sheila Fischman
So there you are, that’s a reading list that’s a bit more manageable in length!
Thanks to Claire at Word by Word for the news that the Dublin LitAward has been announced. As usual I have tried to identify the nominees from Australia and New Zealand, but if I’ve missed any, please let me know.
The shortlist will be announced on 28th March, and the winner on 25th May. For more information, visit the award website. Novels are listed in alphabetical order of the title, with Aussie and Kiwi titles in bold.
Claire at Word by Word has posted a similar list, and she has reviewed some that I haven’t. She also has links to the comments from the nominating library and the judges’comments. Visit her blog here.
| Title, and link to my review if there is one. | Name of author |
| 56 Days | Catherine Ryan Howard |
| 912 Batu Road | Viji Krishnamoorthy |
| A Particular Madness | Sheldon Russell |
| After Story (see my review) | Larissa Behrendt (Aust) |
| All’s Well | Mona Awad |
| An Unusual Grief | Yewande Omotoso |
| Bad Girls | Camila Sosa Villada tr. Kit Maude |
| Bitter Orange Tree | Jokha Alharthi tr. Marilyn Booth |
| Bodies of Light (See the review at Readings) | Jennifer Down (Aust) |
| Bolla | Pajtim Statovci tr. David Hackston |
| Bone Memories (See my review) | Sally Piper (Aust) |
| Brisbane | Eugene Vodolazkin tr. Marian Schwartz |
| Burntcoat | Sarah Hall |
| Case Study | Graeme Macrae Burnett |
| Cloud Cuckoo Land | Anthony Doerr |
| Cold Enough For Snow (see my review) | Jessica Au (Aust) |
| Crossroads | Jonathan Franzen |
| Daughter of the Moon Goddess | Sue Lynn Tan |
| Devotion See Theresa Smith’s review | Hannah Kent (Aust) |
| Em | Kim Thúy tr. Sheila Fischman |
| Falling is like Flying | Manon Uphoff tr. Sam Garrett |
| Fight Night | Miriam Toews |
| Four Treasures of the Sky | Jenny Tinghui Zhang |
| Glory (abandoned at p.90 of 403) | NoViolet Bulawayo |
| Grand Hotel Europa | Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer tr. Michele Hutchison |
| How High We Go in the Dark | Sequoia Nagamatsu |
| Iron Curtain: A Love Story See Bookstalker’s review | Vesna Goldsworthy |
| Kurangaituku See Aly’s review | Whiti Hereaka (NZ) |
| Late Summer | Luiz Ruffato tr. Julia Sanches |
| Lessons in Chemistry | Bonnie Garmus |
| Loose Ties | Yara Nakahanda Monteiro tr. Sandra Tamele |
| Love in the Big City See Stu’s review | Sang Young Park tr. Anton Hur |
| Love Marriage | Monica Ali |
| Love Novel | Ivana Sajko tr. Mima Simić |
| Lovelier, Lonelier | Daryl Qilin Yam |
| Magma See Kim’s review at reading Matters | Thóra Hjörleifsdóttir, tr. Meg Matich |
| Marzahn, Mon Amour See Stu’s review | Katja Oskamp tr. Jo Heinrich |
| Matrix See Brona’s review | Lauren Groff |
| Nettle and Bone | T. Kingfisher |
| Of Fangs and Talons | Nicolas Mathieu tr. Sam Taylor |
| Open Your Heart | Alexie Morin tr. Aimee Wall |
| Paradais See Stu’s review | Fernanda Melchor tr. Sophie Hughes |
| Scattered All Over the Earth See Stu’s review | Yoko Tawada tr. Margaret Mitsutani |
| Sea of Tranquility | Emily St. John Mandel |
| She’s a killer See Aly’s review | Kirsten McDougall (NZ) |
| Silent Winds, Dry Seas | Vinod Busjeet |
| Small Things Like These (see my review) | Claire Keegan |
| Song for the Missing | Pierre Jarawan tr. Elisabeth Lauffer |
| Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy | Reem Bassiouney tr. Roger Allen |
| The Anomaly | Hervé Le Tellier tr. Adriana Hunter |
| The Antarctica of Love | Sara Stridsberg tr. Deborah Bragan-Turner |
| The Bones of Barry Knight | Emma Musty |
| The Book of Form and Emptiness | Ruth Ozeki |
| The Clockwork Girl | Anna Mazzola |
| The Forests | Sandrine Collette tr. Alison Anderson |
| The Good Women of Safe Harbour | Bobbi French |
| The Island of Missing Trees (on my TBR) | Elif Shafak |
| The Lincoln Highway | Amor Towles |
| The Magician (see my review) | Colm Tóibín |
| The Masterpiece | Ana Schnabl tr. David Limon |
| The Morning Star | Karl Ove Knausgaard tr. Martin Aitken |
| The Sentence; A Novel | Louise Erdrich |
| The Trees: A Novel | Percival Everett |
| The White Bathing Hut | Thorvald Steen tr. James Anderson |
| The Wonders | Elena Medel tr. Lizzie Davis and Thomas Bunstead |
| Time Shelter | Georgi Gospodinov tr. Angela Rodel |
| Tomb of Sand (see my review) | Geetanjali Shree tr. Daisy Rockwell |
| What Strange Paradise | Omar El-Akkad |
| Where You Come From | Saša Stanišić tr. Saša Stanišić |
| Young Mungo | Douglas Stuart |
Congratulations to all the authors, editors and publishers!
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
That is the longest nominee list I have seen for any award.
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By: Anokatony on January 31, 2023
at 10:37 am
Yeah, I treat more as an international reading list of interesting books from around the world. But, if you click through to Claire’s blog, you can see that they classify books by a plethora of inconsistent genres, which doesn’t really help the bemused reader to make a start on it…
There is literary fiction; fiction; domestic fiction; historical fiction; popular fiction; fiction/horror; science fiction/dystopia; fantasy fiction; literary Fiction/Mythology; Auto-fiction; Speculative/ Science Fiction; Literary Fiction/Magic Realism; Historical/Gothic Fiction; and *chuckle* Uplifting Fiction. And despite this wealth of categories to choose from there are some which aren’t anything at all!
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 11:44 am
I wrote a post nearly five years ago on “up lit” aka “uplifting fiction”!
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By: whisperinggums on January 31, 2023
at 1:03 pm
Yes, I remembered … but I hadn’t thought that it ‘took off’ as a genre…
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 1:13 pm
Ok I made that one up, but it’s so rare that fiction is uplifting, I thought I’d point it out by using that useful adjective. 😘
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By: Claire 'Word by Word' on January 31, 2023
at 2:21 pm
No, I don’t think you did make it up. I remember getting publicity for it. It’s got its own imprint though don’t ask me what it is.
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 3:23 pm
Maybe just enough to be used on occasions like this … I haven’t really heard it used around our traps.
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By: whisperinggums on January 31, 2023
at 5:10 pm
I was a bit underwhelmed by Grand Hotel Europa.
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By: Guy Savage on January 31, 2023
at 10:41 am
Hi Guy, can we have a link to your review?
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 11:44 am
I usually find I have read a stack off this long list when it’s released each year, but this year is different: I’ve barely read a thing off it. I have, however, read one you don’t have links to: Magma https://readingmattersblog.com/2023/01/14/magma-by-thora-hjorleifsdottir-translated-by-meg-matich/
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By: kimbofo on January 31, 2023
at 12:39 pm
Thanks, Kim, I’ve added the link.
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 1:12 pm
I noticed that too Kim, a longer list and I’ve only read 2, though there are a number that were clearly popular reads in 2022, I recognise.
LikeLiked by 2 people
By: Claire 'Word by Word' on January 31, 2023
at 2:20 pm
Always an interesting list. There are two non-Aussies here my reading group is doing this year in the first half. I’d love to read Keegan, but we are not doing that one.
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By: whisperinggums on January 31, 2023
at 1:01 pm
I’ve got a few on my TBR that I bought from last year’s list, but all of them were books that had been reviewed elsewhere by trusted reviewers.
I have yet to learn if Stu has reviewed any of them, I can’t possibly search so many!
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 1:20 pm
No it’s always such an overwhelming list, but worthwhile nonetheless I think because of its breadth.
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By: whisperinggums on January 31, 2023
at 5:13 pm
Thanks for linking to my post Lisa, I guess it’s the longest longlist because it’s a librarian nomination list that has yet to be judged, so all nominations make the list and the judges only get involved at the shortlist and winner stage, but still, the library is choosing their one title from a year of reading and some have multiple nominations. I find it interesting to see how they choose their nomination as well, as you can see from my list, patriotism sometimes appears to be a factor.
For my own reference I decided to identify the genre and country of origin/connection of the author, as that assists me when reading around the world.
It is really interesting isn’t it, to see what is being valued by different libraries and thus readers, around the world.
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By: Claire 'Word by Word' on January 31, 2023
at 2:16 pm
Yes, I think you’re right about patriotism, and why not? It’s a chance for ‘minority’ literatures (i.e. anything not US or UK) to flag their wares. And as you say, librarians are in a good position to choose though I guess there’s always going to be tension between what’s popular, and what could be a flag-bearer for excellence. Small Things Like These is a good example of being both popular and excellent.
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 3:28 pm
I agree, I do appreciate the variety and the introduction of new voices that we wouldn’t otherwise hear about, which is why I like to read fiction in translation. But I am glad that they’re not all doing that, I do appreciate that librarians have a different awareness of literature than judges of book prizes and that this prize gives merit to that.
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By: Claire 'Word by Word' on January 31, 2023
at 6:59 pm
Yes, very good point. Some of our prizes are rather agenda-driven at the moment and so this prize is a nice counter to that because librarians have their fingers on the pulse.
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 7:01 pm
I believe this longlist used to be even longer, I was surprsied to see only 70 books!
I’ve only read a handful of the titles, but will barracking for Jessica Au and Claire keegan at this point.
I’ve started The Island of Trees for Feb book group, but it hasn’t really grabbed me yet.
I also read The Matrix last year, if you’d like to include my response.
bronasbooks.com/2022/02/19/matrix-lauren-groff-usafiction/
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By: Brona's Books on January 31, 2023
at 8:50 pm
Done, thank you.
Amazing how many we’ve been able to cover, between us all!
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 10:41 pm
I always find something really interesting on this list and delighted to see a few of my favourites from last year on it.
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By: Cathy746books on January 31, 2023
at 9:27 pm
Are there any that you’ve reviewed that I can link to from here?
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 10:43 pm
Lisa, I did full reviews of Small Things Like These and Paradais and included a few more in my monthly round ups, but no full reveiws.
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By: Cathy746books on January 31, 2023
at 10:54 pm
Have you read the Ozeki? I heard her talk about it on the radio and reserved it at the library, but (as usual) a heap of reviews al came in at once, and it was long, and it didn’t ‘grab me’ right away so I sent it back after barely looking at it. Sometimes, there’s really just not enough time…
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By: Lisa Hill on February 1, 2023
at 8:00 am
I haven’t, in fact I’ve never read Ozeki!
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By: Cathy746books on February 1, 2023
at 8:24 pm
I read My Year of Meats, I remember it being rather funny, though it had a serious side as well.
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By: Lisa Hill on February 1, 2023
at 9:17 pm
I think I might have a copy of that one Lisa, I’ll have to check and see.
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By: Cathy746books on February 2, 2023
at 9:20 pm
Thanks for the link Lisa!
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By: Theresa Smith Writes on January 31, 2023
at 9:51 pm
You’re welcome!
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By: Lisa Hill on January 31, 2023
at 10:38 pm
I have read four of these: ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ (loved it), ‘Case Study’ (intriguing), ‘Devotion’ (loved it), and ‘The Lincoln Highway (loved it). Now I want to read more…
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By: Jennifer on February 1, 2023
at 1:56 pm
I’ve heard lots of love for the Lincoln Hwy…
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By: Lisa Hill on February 1, 2023
at 2:59 pm