As Richard Flanagan wins the Booker prize, there is a growing belief reading is about more than just entertainment and escapism. Channel 4 News eavesdrops on a “bibliotherapy” session.
The Folio Prize – billed as the alternative to the Booker – has issued its inaugural shortlist and it is resolutely not dominated by literary megastars.
Judith Tebbutt’s A Long Walk Home tells the story of the author’s horrific six-month ordeal at the hands of Somali pirates, who killed her husband. A “heart-stopping” memoir worthy of an award.
Jim Crace’s Harvest is the bookmaker’s favourite to win the 2013 Man Booker prize – and we will find out who gets the £50,000 prize on Tuesday. But which book gets the Channel 4 News seal of approval?
Our health correspondent picks a medical mystery as book of the year: Mary Beth Keane’s Fever is about “typhoid Mary”, who had no symptoms herself, but was still accused of spreading the disease.
Ahead of the announcement of the Booker prize 2013, Jon Snow picks Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s Americanah as his book of the year – a novel about race, identity and nationality in Africa and the US.
Never mind the Booker: the year’s most award-worthy book is The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna. Set in Croatia it explores themes of conflict, the lasting impact of war and “how anger never quite fades”.
In the first of our Alternative Booker series Paul Mason picks Donal Ryan’s The Spinning Heart: a novel full of the “poetry of experience” which explores the impact of Ireland’s financial crash.