Thursday 8 June 2017

Final, final thoughts about the Baileys Prize

Women's Prize for Fiction ceremony and final thoughts.

Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to the prize ceremony for the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and to be honest by the time it came to go into the event I was about ready to run away - it has been a long time since I've been to a swanky book event and an even longer time since I've been to one where I know nobody else in the room.

To be honest as I entered the fabulously decorated ballroom at the Southbank Centre I was even more overwhelmed - I was met with smartly dressed waiters with a selection of drinks, more wandering around with canapes and lots of very smartly dressed people.

My discomfort vanished really quickly as Karen and Kimberley from the Reading Agency spotted me really quickly and we soon found another library ambassador - book chat quickly followed.

The actual prize ceremony was really smoothly run, the speeches were all interesting and fun - championing books, reading, fiction and authors especially in the world we are currently living in.

On the trip down to London, and after talking with colleagues at work, I'd decided that my overall favourite was Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo - her links to Norfolk just swung it for me. I think I can also explain it and handsell it to customers slightly more easily than my other top read Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. I was lucky enough to meet both authors at the event and they were lovely.

While the bookies were saying Naomi Alderman's The Power I was pleased to see so much love for Do Not Say on line in the days leading up to the announcement - however on the night the bookies were proved right at the dystopian, feminist Animal Farm won the overall prize.

I've been thinking about this book a lot since I finished it and while it wasn't my top read the fact that it is preying on my mind means that it must have *something* to it and I can see why it won - I'm now looking forward to talking about this, and the other 5 books, with friends and customers in the library.

After an amazing experience as a library ambassador I now have to do my thanks - to the Reading Agency for the opportunity, to the publishers for providing me with a copy of each book, to Baileys for the invite to the party last night, and also to my colleagues for letting me talk books for so long and rearranging shifts at the library so I could go to the prize!

Enough gushing - I'm off to find more great books to read and talk about!

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