“Jamrach’s Menagerie”

August 31, 2011 at 3:45 pm | Posted in Fiction | 1 Comment

This is the third title I have read off this year’s Booker long list.  The first thing I will tell you about Jamrach’s Menagerie is that I stayed up all night reading it.  The second thing I will say is that you could pick it up and read any single random sentence and get a fair picture of how amazing Carol Birch’s writing is.

 

What’s it about?  Exotic animals, seafaring, love, and life’s greatest moral questions.  There is some very dark stuff in here, but if you read Life of Pi it’s probably nothing you couldn’t handle.

This book is unquestionably going to make the cut for the short list.  Not having gotten that far down the list yet, I am still willing to say it will make a strong contender for the prize itself.