I decided to try and do a weekly look at the progress of my attempt to read all the booker international longlisted books. The longlist came out yesterday I was sitting as I try to be most years pressing refresh on the booker site as though it was a news feed. I love to have been around in ticker-tape times seeing the news v=come in little strips of paper. I made the mistake of thinking the list was only eight books as it had part upload on a refresh so then I went on Twitter happy I hadń so many books to get anyway after seeing it was the usual 13 books I then looked at the list.

Fernanda Melchor (Mexico) & Sophie Hughes
– Paradais (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Mieko Kawakami (Japan), Sam Bett & David Boyd
– Heaven (Picador)

Sang Young Park (South Korea) & Anton Hur
– Love in the Big City (Tilted Axis Press)

Norman Erikson Pasaribu (Indonesia) & Tiffany Tsao
– Happy Stories, Mostly (Tilted Axis Press)

Claudia Piñeiro (Argentina) & Frances Riddle
– Elena Knows (Charco Press)

Violaine Huisman (France) & Leslie Camhi
– The Book of Mother (Virago)

David Grossman (Israel) & Jessica Cohen
– More than I Love My Life (Jonathan Cape)

Paulo Scott (Brazil) & Daniel Hahn
– Phenotypes (And Other Stories)

Jon Fosse (Norway) & Damion Searls
– A New Name: Septology VI-VII (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Jonas Eika (Denmark) & Sherilyn Hellberg
– After the Sun (Lolli Editions)

Geetanjali Shree (India) & Daisy Rockwell
– Tomb of Sand (Tilted Axis Press)

Olga Tokarczuk (Poland) & Jennifer Croft
– The Books of Jacob (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Bora Chung (South Korea) & Anton Hur
– Cursed Bunny (Honford Star)

We have a reaction post from our slack feed that Tony has done. I expected to read more than other years I felt the last year or two I haveń had my finger on the pulse as much as I once did. The books on the list, on the whole, I was aware of bar two and the other 11 most were mentioned by one or other of the shadow jury or on Twitter to me so I am happy to have some reading to do , I knew any list Frank be involved with would be great. I owned the tilted axis books as I have a subscription for this ear which was great. I have read Love in the big city and reviewed it but hadń reviewed Tomb of sand I am suffering a real crisis in confidence around doing reviews and this is one of the two books on the list I had read think they be on the list then I panic reviewing them and now will have to reread it which is great as it was one of my favourite books of this year. As for happy stories, mainly had partly read.   I had the Fosse but not read book two of this series and this is book three I have both so will read them I had reviewed the first part and The book of Jacob Iis the other book I had read and then sat panicking around my review I doń know why after 1100 reviews I just started to worry  I maybe need to go back and this post is maybe a way of going back in how I used to blog. The other Fitzcarraldo book Paradais isń out yet and I doń get sent many as over the year I haveń reviewed the ones I’ve been sent I have reviewed a number of their books so I may have wait until it comes out. I checked my library they had the  David Grossman which is one I would be able to borrow from my library at some point as I have reviewed three of his books on the blog and enjoyed his books I fetch that yesterday morning. They had Huisman this is one I had missed I mean I not able to remember every book I see mentioned but I tried to find it in the library but it must have been about somewhere so I ordered it to collect and will do so in the week. I then looked for the three I could get now they are Heaven that I picked up yesterday and then After the sun coming today and Phenotypes coming next week. I was sent cursed rabbit but it has hidden may be gone down a book rabbit hole Iḿ not sure if I shelved it somewhere or if it may have accidentally been thrown out in a pile of the weekend papers anyway I look again if not I’ll order it next week then it will turn up !! That’s it so I knew about an hour after the list came out that the list would be in the house by this time next week. I decided to start with Happy stories, mostly which is the second book I have read from Indonesia and I had part read it and was grabbed by the style also the interview between the translator and writer at the end of the book is very insightful. I chose this just to hit the ground running I thought I could knock off the short books and this is the case as I finished that earlier and had to start Heaven last night I hadń read Breast and eggs and I may be as yo know avoid hype books this is a quick read and shall finish that tonight. I think by this time next week or so I will have four reads and then the week after finish all the others bar the two epics. then leave time for Tomb of sand which is a large book but a quick read and then Books of Jacob. I finished it in January but will read it again. So David set up a slack group for this year and then the longlist was put in individual chats? anyway, we have started discussing each book we also have our spreadsheet that we score to get our long list to our shortlist and this year we will be having a group chat over the video, which for me was the highlight of the year it is so good to put a face and also I struggle so much with tweets these days after yet again having my grammar highlighted I know my grammar is poor its slightly better than it was but still a let down for me. So we are on our way this will be a weekly post where I talk about reading the books mention my reviews maybe other bits I just fancied trying something different and I will be back with the first review of the book Happy stories mostly.What are your thoughts on the list?