Here’s a recap of what’s on the Wellcome Book Prize longlist, with links to all the reviews that have gone up on our blogs so far:
Amateur: A true story about what makes a man by Thomas Page McBee
Astroturf by Matthew Sperling
Educated by Tara Westover
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Heart: A history by Sandeep Jauhar
Mind on Fire: A memoir of madness and recovery by Arnold Thomas Fanning
Murmur by Will Eaves
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Polio: The odyssey of eradication by Thomas Abraham
Sight by Jessie Greengrass
The Trauma Cleaner: One woman’s extraordinary life in death, decay and disaster by Sarah Krasnostein
This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein
Together we have chosen the six* books we would like to see advance to the shortlist. This is based on our own reading and interest, but also on what we think best fits the prize’s aim, as stated on the website:
To be eligible for entry, a book should have a central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness. At some point, medicine touches all our lives. Books that find stories in those brushes with medicine are ones that add new meaning to what it means to be human. The subjects these books grapple with might include birth and beginnings, illness and loss, pain, memory, and identity. In keeping with its vision and goals, the Wellcome Book Prize aims to excite public interest and encourage debate around these topics.
Here are the books (*seven of them, actually) that we’ll be rooting for – we had a tie on a couple:
Amateur: A true story about what makes a man by Thomas Page McBee
Educated by Tara Westover
Heart: A history by Sandeep Jauhar
Murmur by Will Eaves
Sight by Jessie Greengrass
The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein
The official Wellcome Book Prize shortlist will be announced on Tuesday the 19th. I’ll check back in on Wednesday with our reactions to the shortlist and the plan for covering the rest of the books we haven’t already read.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
I enjoyed the Edelstein – a refreshing, courageous book, and an enlightening one. Did you manage to meet to discuss your list?
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It seems to be our collective favourite so far! No, we conferred over e-mail. I’ve met everyone by now through various bookish events in London, but the rest have not all met each other yet. I hope we’ll be able to meet up at the shortlist reading event, or the prize ceremony.
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I hope you will. I had a near miss with Paul who spent the whole of our shadow judging meting on a train between Dorset and London. Thankfully, the mobile signal held out.
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I’m keeping late April/early May free in the hope we get invited to events again! Really enjoyed 5×15 last time.
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I hope to at least go to the ceremony. I’ll have to wait and see which weekend the shortlist events fall on.
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Susan, I remember that kerfuffle — such a shame! I hope we can tempt you back to London for another upcoming event and the rest of us will get to meet you 🙂
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That would be lovely. There’s always the Groucho for the STPFD event.
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It’s neat discovering bloggers I read are interconnected!
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It’s a small world! Particularly in UK book blogging.
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Amazingly, I’ve read half of these! (Amateur, Sight, and The Trauma Cleaner.) And am deeply interested in Jean Hannah Edelstein’s book and in Murmur. (Also, I suppose, in Educated, although everyone seems to have read it so it’s quite far down on my list as it doesn’t appear to need much championing.)
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I can’t remember where I read this — an exchange between a couple of publishing types in America, in which the one said, “that book doesn’t need me to read it.” As in, it’s such a cultural touchstone that you almost feel you’ve read it already!
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I feel that way about quite a few books! (Sometimes I think I’ve actually read them – The Picture of Dorian Gray, I know for a fact, I’ve never read, but I *feel* as though I have!)
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Likewise, I never finished Moby-Dick or Frankenstein but have decided I get a pass on them 🙂
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Yay for The Trauma Cleaner!
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I’ve now got the Edelstein and McBee reserved at the library. Looking forward to reading both. I was pleasantly surprised given our earlier discussions that both Educated and the Trauma Cleaner appear on our shortlist, but I did enjoy reading them both. I hope I can come to one of the events!
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I hope you’ll enjoy those two. The more I thought about Educated and The Trauma Cleaner, the more health themes popped into my mind, especially trauma and memory — I think they deal with those subjects very well.
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[…] shadow panel successfully predicted four of these six, with the remaining two (Fanning and Moshfegh) coming as something of a surprise. […]
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[…] mental health and gender. The week before the official announcement we as a shadow panel chose our ideal shortlist, which contained seven titles rather than six because two books tied in our […]
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[…] mental health and gender. The week before the official announcement we as a shadow panel chose our ideal shortlist, which contained seven titles rather than six because two books tied in our […]
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