Thoughts on the 2020 Women's Prize

 

I can't believe that three years have passed since I was picked as a library ambassador for the Women's Prize. Time flies.

In 2017 I read all of the short listed books and got to pick my favourite from the list as well as getting to meet some lovely new people and to go to the prize ceremony.

This year it was all a bit different (what isn't in 2020?!) but when the prize giving was delayed from June to September I decided to try and read all of the shortlisted books and to try and pick the winner.

The short listed books were:

• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
• Dominca by Angie Cruz
• Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
• The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
• Weather by Jenny Offill

From the outset A Thousand Ships was my favourite book, it was one of my best reads in 2019 and I still think it is fantastic. Then I read Girl, Woman, Other and got even crosser that it shared the Booker Prize with Attwood last year - it is far, far, far better than The Tesatments. I also quite enjoyed Hamnet earlier in the year.

Dominica and Weather were good reads but haven't hugely stuck with me, and I confess to being very behind the times and so only got around to reading Wolf Hall this year and not the shortlisted tome, I can't see that the quality of writing has dropped that much and so my feelings on this one are 'a good read but Haynes & Evaristo's books are better'.

The results were announced this week and Hamnet was crowned the 25th winner of Women's Prize and my run of not being able to pick the winner continues!

Having read (nearly) all of the books  and looked through my reading notes I can't say I am upset at the result - unlike last year's Booker prize - but I do wish that A Thousand Ships had won. 

If you aren't familiar with Natalie Hayne's work then I really do recommend giving her radio series a try - it is a wonderful mix of history, mythology, feminism and humour.