Booker Prize – Mila's Bookshelf

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Girl, Woman, Other spans over a hundred years, following the stories of twelve interlinked Black British women. For most people, this would be an impossible feat ending in a collapsed and hopelessly messy structure, but Bernardine Evaristo isn’t most people. She spins each story from the finest threads and deftly weaves them together.

A Booker Prize winner (2019), this book has deservedly had a lot of hype. There are countless reviews of it out there, but I absolutely had to add my own because this book: wow.

With its fragmented sentence structure and lack of capital letters and full stops, the book is almost like poetry. Adopting such a writing style along with the complex plot is a risky choice, but Evaristo more than pulls it off. My thought pattern quickly started to echo the style of the book, and that’s when you know a book’s got under your skin.

I was captured by the glimpses into each character’s story. Every time a character’s section ended and we moved onto the next one, I’d wish their particular story could have carried on for the rest of the book. That is, until I’d swiftly become grasped by the next character and their life.

Evaristo covers an impressive range of themes. Race, gender, friendships, and relationships are at the forefront, set against a background of today’s Britain seen from twelve very different perspectives. While we may only visit each character for a short time, each theme is explored in great depth and with such variety that you could almost imagine each character was written by a different author.

This book is important. It is a total must-read and I’m jealous of anyone who still has yet to read it for the first time!

The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel

I am deeply obsessed with Tudor history. Historical fiction, non-fiction, art – absolutely anything Tudor-related. I first read Wolf Hall after it won the Booker Prize in 2009. Even at a young age, I was immediately drawn into Hilary Mantel’s skilful portrayal of Cromwell and the Tudor court. I continued to be enthralled by it throughout her followings books, Bring Up the Bodies, and (finally!) The Mirror and the Light.

This series truly has everything. Compelling characters, sharp, witty prose, and a gripping, high-stakes setting. The Tudor period has undeniably been done to death in all forms of historical fiction, but Hilary Mantel breathed new life into it with her unique take on the previously much-maligned Cromwell.

Once I’d managed to extricate myself from the whirlpool of ‘he saids,’ and ascertain that ‘he’ ALWAYS refers to Cromwell, I couldn’t get enough of Hilary Mantel’s sharp, dialogue-dominant prose. She avoids being laden down by old-style phrasing, resulting in a reading experience that is as urgent and exciting as Cromwell’s own life.

Mantel transforms Cromwell from a figure once seen as unglamorously unpleasant to one who is not only human, but dryly humorous and intelligent. This is a huge asset as we navigate the Tudor court through Cromwell’s observant and somewhat sardonic eyes. Like him, we enter it as outsiders, but by the end of the book – like him – it is impossible for us not to have become thoroughly embroiled in it.

Cromwell’s ending may be common knowledge, but Mantel still managed to maintain both her readers’ and the critics’ enthusiasm for his story over a period of 11 years. I actually got chills when I saw the billboard in Leicester Square with the Tudor Rose and the words ‘So now get up.’ I was so excited to get my hands on The Mirror and the Light after 8 years of waiting!

I was lucky enough to see the Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies stage adaptation by the RSC at the Aldwych Theatre in London. It would be wonderful if they released recordings, or even did another for The Mirror and the Light post-pandemic.

The BBC series with Mark Rylance and Claire Foy was also brilliant. To those who haven’t seen it yet, this is a great time to do it – especially if you’re looking for another excellent historical series to binge after Bridgerton or The Crown.

I couldn’t recommend this trilogy enough to those who haven’t yet picked it up, but if the first two books taking the Booker Prize isn’t convincing enough, I’m not sure what is!