Latest / Bookies' Favourite / Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated by Helen Stevenson, published by Small Axes / HopeRoad | Review | Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026

Transcript

Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated by Helen Stevenson, published by Small Axes / HopeRoad | Review | Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026 · Bookies' Favourite

• 0:08
  I'm Aaron, You might know me from bookies.
• 0:11
  Favorite. And I'm Jake, you don't know me,
• 0:13
  but you will in our new book podcast, The Novel Series.
• 0:16
  We read book series to completion, one book per
• 0:19
  episode, 1 episode a month. From prequels to sequels, sagas
• 0:23
  to spin offs, we'll cover it all.
• 0:25
  Each episode we'll have a first edition reader stepping into the
• 0:28
  series for the first time and a rotating panel of novel guest
• 0:32
  superfans who've already completed the series.
• 0:35
  We launched mid February with On the Calculation of Volume by
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  Solve Bala, a 7 novel Danish series with major award
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  recognition. Join the club and read book one
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  along with us. Find the novel series wherever
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  you listen to your podcast. Subscribe to hear our first
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  episode. New episodes on the 15th of each
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  month. Same day, same series, new book.
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  The novel series. Where the story continues.
• 1:12
  Welcome to the Club, Vicki's favorite book club.
• 1:15
  We read literary shortlist and award-winning novels.
• 1:18
  We are currently reading the Queen Mary's Small Press Fiction
• 1:21
  Prize Long List. It's an award that recognizes
• 1:24
  the art of literature and promotes works of high merit
• 1:27
  which have been published in the UK and Ireland.
• 1:30
  This episode we're discussing Small Boat by Vincent
• 1:33
  Dellacroix, translated from the French by Helen Stevenson from
• 1:37
  Small Axes and Hope Rd. Publishing.
• 1:40
  This book is inspired by regular, hence the original
• 1:43
  French title is No Fries, which translates to Shipwreck.
• 1:46
  We've already covered this book last year when we read the
• 1:48
  International Booker Prize 2025 shortlist.
• 1:51
  This novel is the winner of the English Pen Translates Award
• 1:55
  2025 and the original French novel was long listed for the
• 1:58
  20/20/23 Pre Gone cloth. It was shortlisted for the 2023
• 2:04
  Free Jean Jean No and I won the Pre The Contour 2024 along with
• 2:11
  the Preet 2024. I love.
• 2:17
  It it's like you're in Liverpool.
• 2:22
  He's got it all that, even the last.
• 2:29
  The GCSE French con. I didn't.
• 2:32
  What? Apologies, we are not French
• 2:37
  speakers so our pronunciation may be off.
• 2:40
  I'm Hannah, You're a certified book yapper and yeah, I can't
• 2:45
  wait to deep dive back into this one.
• 2:47
  I'm Lucy and yeah, I'm excited to get back into it again.
• 2:51
  I think it's kind of been diluted and lists and things and
• 2:57
  1 loads of stuff and it's been talked about quite a lot and it
• 2:59
  was made that BBC thing, so I think it'd be interesting to
• 3:02
  talk about it a year on. And I'm Aaron, I tried to reread
• 3:06
  this book and I got 3 pages in, so we'll see how much I
• 3:09
  remember. Jim Appeal, Colin and I liked
• 3:13
  this book when we read it first, and yeah, it'd be interesting to
• 3:17
  see if we can remember any of the details from the last time
• 3:20
  we read it. So let's dive in, shall we?
• 3:22
  To start us off, here's a quote from Small Boat.
• 3:26
  I didn't ask you to leave. Spoil a warning from this point
• 3:30
  onwards if you haven't read the book yet and you're planning to
• 3:33
  come back to this discussion after you've done so.
• 3:37
  In Small Boat, we followed the inner monologue of a woman who
• 3:39
  works for the French regional monitoring and rescue center
• 3:43
  known as Cross. She received calls for help from
• 3:46
  a migrant on a sinking boat crossing the English Channel.
• 3:49
  The protagonist and the French field to assist, instead
• 3:51
  directing the migrant to contact the British Coast Guard even
• 3:54
  though they were in French waters.
• 3:56
  The boat sank and at least 27 people died.
• 3:59
  The call receiver is question about the choices she made and
• 4:01
  didn't make that night. Let's start things off by
• 4:05
  hearing from our bookie for this episode, Jean Francois Boudot,
• 4:09
  who is at Nathaniel under Score Archer on Instagram.
• 4:13
  My name is Jean Francois, I'm French, I'm a reader, and this
• 4:17
  is about No Fraas by Vassander Crom.
• 4:24
  In November 2021, the sinking of a migrant boat in the English
• 4:31
  Channel opposed the death of 27 people.
• 4:35
  Despite repeated calls for help, The servants center Sentinel
• 4:39
  rescue. This real event is the starting
• 4:42
  point from which Nasanto's quiet novel unfolds.
• 4:46
  By bringing face to face to woman 1A police officer, the
• 4:50
  other one in charge of taking calls at the service center.
• 4:55
  From this face to face, the author raises the question about
• 4:59
  evil, indefence and collective responsibility.
• 5:04
  If we are all monsters, do monsters still exist?
• 5:08
  The portrait is not that simplistic.
• 5:11
  The novels offers no answers. It is up to each of us to form
• 5:17
  our own image, to shape our own opinion, and to go beyond the
• 5:22
  novel and learn about the living condition in the Calais Jungle,
• 5:26
  to see the fences that stretch above certain roads of the
• 5:30
  Calais region. I was born in Calais, and I
• 5:34
  remember on the beach at Sangat, exchanging a few words with the
• 5:39
  Kurdish refugee. We greeted each other.
• 5:42
  He raised the beer with a nod, and his gaze drifted toward the
• 5:46
  horizon, toward England, which he needed desperately to reach
• 5:51
  at all costs. I think that that kind of
• 5:56
  summarizes this book and the fact that this book is based on
• 6:02
  real events. And then we have Jean Francois,
• 6:06
  who has shared his own experience of speaking with a
• 6:11
  migrant on the beach on the shore of Calais.
• 6:14
  And the the migrant was desperately trying to to reach
• 6:18
  the the shores of England. So I think it almost just gets
• 6:24
  the point across that these are real people that we're dealing
• 6:27
  with and really genuine experiences as much as it is a
• 6:32
  work of fiction. It's investigating actual true
• 6:38
  real life events, and I don't think that's ever been the same
• 6:43
  as any other books that we've discussed so far, the fact that
• 6:47
  this one is basically real life. Yeah, I think I remember the
• 6:51
  thing that hit most like hardest when we read the first time or
• 6:55
  when we discussed the first time was the chat, the part where it
• 6:58
  was from the point of view of migrant on the on that.
• 7:01
  I mean, that's the thing that I remember most out of it all.
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  And I remember, you know, the her horror of that situation and
• 7:08
  how they're like in the water and they have the phone and
• 7:10
  they're waiting. They're like holding on hope
• 7:13
  that someone's going to save them.
• 7:14
  And like, I mean, yeah, that's, it's just the human side of it,
• 7:18
  you know? I think as well what you're kind
• 7:21
  of saying is I think in my head to sing that I think the book,
• 7:25
  the book even in both in all parts kind of hits home, which
• 7:29
  is something that I wouldn't have really occurred to me
• 7:31
  before. But it was just how long these
• 7:33
  people are in the water. And then how much hope there is
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  and how much hope they have in these institutions on either
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  side that that they will, that they will see if, and I suppose
• 7:46
  you probably when you're in that situation will be like, you'll
• 7:50
  put away any thoughts of like they won't come and say, you
• 7:52
  know what I mean? And I think that's, I think
• 7:54
  that's the last line of the. Book.
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  When she says to the the man on the boat, she said I said or he
• 8:01
  said to me, you're not hearing me.
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  You will not be saved to that idea that they you.
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  I mean, if you were in that situation, you you would never
• 8:12
  think that you would always be hoping.
• 8:15
  But it's such a long time and such a long time to be in this
• 8:18
  like stasis of trying to stay alive.
• 8:21
  But also, yeah, it just, I think that that that section really
• 8:26
  drove home just the the horror of the situation.
• 8:30
  And it's not a quick, like easy, you know, I always think I
• 8:34
  imagined it like almost like, you know, the Titanic.
• 8:36
  It's like not the Titanic deaths.
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  We're not horrifically horrible. It's obviously really, really
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  horrible. And they died within like
• 8:45
  however many minutes. But it's like that was kind of
• 8:48
  like maybe in those 5 minutes they would have had some form of
• 8:52
  hope as well. But it's like ours and ours of
• 8:55
  being like of. When do you realize that you
• 8:58
  have no hope? I mean, it's a whole hope dies
• 9:01
  last, you know, that classic, classic saying.
• 9:05
  I find this book like really hard hitting and one that I
• 9:09
  still talk about ever since we've done the International
• 9:13
  Booker Prize, like I'll bring it up all the time to talk to
• 9:15
  people if they're looking for a short book to kind of get into
• 9:18
  that's not maybe like a fantasy type novel, you know, something
• 9:22
  a bit more hard hitting. This book is completely stuck
• 9:24
  with me. And I think even now I, I feel
• 9:27
  like there's been so much in the news about immigration and
• 9:32
  things like that. And I think sometimes everyone
• 9:33
  forgets the human side of things.
• 9:37
  And even I talk about this cover so much is 1 of my like hard
• 9:41
  hitting covers. Because when I looked at it,
• 9:44
  like I said, the first time we recorded this, I looked at it, I
• 9:46
  was like, oh, it's the sea. And then that second time where
• 9:48
  you look at it and then you realize it's people and it just
• 9:52
  like it's, it's so stuck with me.
• 9:55
  And then when I found out, like the illustrator goes to my
• 9:57
  favorite bookshop and bath, I'm like every time I'm there and
• 10:00
  I'm like hoping to bump into the to just be like, I love your
• 10:04
  cover. It hit me really hard.
• 10:06
  Yeah, I think we do need to give a major shout out to James Nunn
• 10:11
  because this was my favorite book cover of 2025.
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  It's so striking and really gets the the point across just by
• 10:23
  looking at the book cover. You just have a small, tiny
• 10:26
  little life raft in an ocean of bodies.
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  And as you said, Hannah, it's so easy to not notice that it's,
• 10:36
  it's made-up of bodies until you actually take a second and pay
• 10:41
  attention to to what you're you're looking at.
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  And so it's it's just the cover itself is extremely striking.
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  Yeah. Do you have any conversations
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  I've had with people and they hadn't realized about the cover
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  until I pointed it out, And then they were like, wow, this is
• 10:56
  quite dark. It's just like, yeah.
• 10:58
  And I also really loved that BBC Radio 4 had picked it as a
• 11:03
  series to read out. It was like an 8 part series
• 11:06
  where they did like 15 minutes every night.
• 11:10
  I'm not sure if that's still on the BBC signs anymore.
• 11:12
  No, Aaron shaking his head. It's not.
• 11:14
  But it was really weird because I listened to the news every
• 11:17
  night and things like that. And then I heard small votes and
• 11:20
  I was like, Oh my God, like I love this book.
• 11:22
  He's getting even more coverage. It was really nice to see
• 11:25
  because I think this was on my list of the one I wanted to win
• 11:29
  the international vicar, so I was disappointed.
• 11:33
  Didn't by love that it's still getting recognition now?
• 11:37
  I think, yeah, Like, I think I said it in the opening episode,
• 11:39
  but it's like, if this had been omitted from the list, I think
• 11:43
  that would have been a massive oversight.
• 11:45
  I think I'd only read two books that could have been eligible
• 11:48
  for the Queen Mary. And this one, I was like, if
• 11:52
  this isn't on it, that's just such a massive, like shame.
• 11:57
  And it's not that I think that this book hadn't been recognized
• 11:59
  enough. Like I think it has been, you
• 12:01
  know, so many people talk about it, so many people it's been in
• 12:03
  the International Booker Prize shortlist and it's won the
• 12:06
  English pen award. But I think I would have been
• 12:11
  upset if it hadn't been in this list because it is such a
• 12:14
  phenomenal book and it deserves to be on every list.
• 12:17
  Like, you know, it's what what he's done isn't easy to do in
• 12:22
  the amount of pages that he's done it in and the perspectives
• 12:26
  that he's he's given. And I think yeah, like I I think
• 12:34
  like you how many you were saying that like you still think
• 12:36
  about this book. It's like this is definitely one
• 12:38
  of the ones of the this is definitely one of the books I've
• 12:41
  read this last year, 2025 that I was like, this is stuck with me.
• 12:45
  And I would recommend to people wholeheartedly.
• 12:47
  And I think that it's, it's, it's a great book, but like the
• 12:52
  the themes in it and how he was about examining like our guilts
• 12:57
  and the shame and how we blame other people for different
• 13:04
  things. And I think that, yeah, I'm,
• 13:06
  I'm, I'm excited like because I started reading on the Greenwich
• 13:11
  line and I think that there's a lot of not parallels exactly,
• 13:15
  but there's a lot of issues that are discussed in this that I
• 13:18
  definitely think are really relevant to small boats.
• 13:20
  I think they'll be really interesting, our conversations
• 13:23
  about this book to talk about small boat as well.
• 13:27
  I think out of all the books that we're discussing from this
• 13:32
  long list, this is one of the few translations.
• 13:38
  It's not specifically a translation award, but some of
• 13:44
  those that have been picked are translations and do we think
• 13:48
  that that will impact its chances of winning or do we
• 13:53
  think it will actually give it a helping hand considering last
• 13:57
  year's winner was a translation? And the year before was a
• 14:00
  translation on Catalan man. I'm pretty sure it was 2024, I
• 14:05
  can't remember exactly. Well, it was a previous winner
• 14:08
  if it wasn't the previous year. Yeah, I do.
• 14:12
  I don't think it hurts or I don't know if it's a plus those
• 14:15
  last ones were or maybe they'll think about doing something
• 14:17
  different this year. I don't know.
• 14:21
  I think The thing is with the thing with a lot of translated
• 14:25
  literature is that it is coming from a culture that people might
• 14:29
  not normally have access to, you know, And I think it
• 14:31
  automatically brings out like a curiosity in a way that like
• 14:35
  it's something stand out a little more just because it's,
• 14:37
  it's something different and it's been translated from a
• 14:40
  different language. Like there's so much cultural
• 14:41
  stuff that the translators to get across.
• 14:44
  I think that makes it just generally more interesting.
• 14:46
  Like when we talk about both the International Booker and the the
• 14:50
  Booker Prize that we did read last year, like the
• 14:52
  international one, the ideas and stuff being raised there and the
• 14:54
  cultural aspects were generally more interesting to us all
• 14:58
  rather than the the actual Booker Prize.
• 15:01
  And I don't, I mean, I'm not saying that it's because it's
• 15:03
  translated fiction, it's part of that.
• 15:05
  But I think like, yeah, it probably has some sort of a
• 15:08
  helping hand. Yeah, I think you're right.
• 15:10
  I think that like they're also story, especially because it's a
• 15:13
  small press as well. So a lot of those small presses
• 15:16
  possibly are like historically like your Fitzgeraldo and Charco
• 15:20
  and those kind of ones that would have been eligible
• 15:22
  previously for the Queen Mary. They would be very heavily
• 15:25
  translated. I think Charco is only
• 15:26
  translated and Fitzgeraldo's a good percentage and those books,
• 15:33
  it's like, I think that small presses can take a take a gamble
• 15:37
  with them. And I think that they, it's like
• 15:41
  a it's like a mix of like the, these are some of the best
• 15:44
  things coming out of these different cultures.
• 15:47
  And also they're going to be a bit stranger because they're
• 15:50
  coming from small presses as well.
• 15:52
  So they're going to be people are there's more of a gamble
• 15:54
  happening. And I think that maybe I'm
• 15:56
  really This is why I'm really excited about what I was doing
• 15:58
  the Queen Mary. It's just because it's like
• 16:00
  we're going to be getting some of the most strange and
• 16:05
  different, not not strange as in because a lot of them are
• 16:08
  obviously not translated and are coming from from like British
• 16:12
  and Irish authors, but it's like they're doing something
• 16:15
  different or trying to do something different.
• 16:16
  And I think that that's like a perfect mix that we're probably
• 16:20
  going to get. So like I've almost finished on
• 16:22
  the Greenwich line and I've obviously finished small boat
• 16:24
  and I think small boats, incredible book on the ground
• 16:27
  sign. I'm really, really enjoying.
• 16:28
  Don't want to give too much away, but I'm like, if this is
• 16:31
  the caliber that we're going to be getting from this prize, I
• 16:34
  can't because I think we were all a bit deflated after the
• 16:38
  Booker in general, the Booker shortlist.
• 16:40
  And but I don't think that we're going to have this experience
• 16:44
  with this prize. I think this is going to be
• 16:45
  really good, yeah. That's what I was thinking
• 16:48
  because I really, really love small boats so much.
• 16:52
  And I'm like, is this? I'm already going in with such
• 16:54
  high expectations of like, in a way I'm like, no book can beat
• 16:57
  this big. It was my favorite, but now I'm
• 16:59
  thinking this is my QB like really, really tough.
• 17:03
  And I especially keep loving over the last year especially,
• 17:07
  and I think the international bicker was a big help.
• 17:09
  Translated novels have become like the majority of what I read
• 17:13
  now. So I'm excited to get like a
• 17:15
  whole like other side or perspective.
• 17:18
  You know, I know we might not be the best to explain all those
• 17:21
  things sometimes, but I'm excited to deep dive in more and
• 17:26
  like get to chat like all these different books.
• 17:30
  Someone said to me recently they were talking about the idea and
• 17:34
  I, I think this book deals a lot with like guilt and shame and
• 17:37
  things like that. And I like you relate to the,
• 17:41
  the, the operator to an extent. You I think she's done actions
• 17:47
  that are wrong. That's a bit of a spoiler, but I
• 17:49
  do think she is like, she misled those people and she she did
• 17:54
  something wrong. But I've also worked in a call
• 17:58
  center and been really frustrated with people on the
• 18:01
  phone. And I think that this was like,
• 18:03
  not that she is a bad person per SE, she's done something bad.
• 18:07
  But I think that this so someone said to me recently that like
• 18:12
  she operates like if you're, you're shining a light on
• 18:16
  something and the part that she has to get out of that limelight
• 18:19
  and get out of the way. And it feels like there's a
• 18:22
  constant like spotlight on you. And I feel like this woman,
• 18:25
  through her making up of this inspector in her own mental kind
• 18:30
  of prison, she is feeling this shame for what she's done.
• 18:34
  And she's trying desperately to get away from it.
• 18:36
  And she's trying desperately to she, she knows that there's
• 18:40
  people who are going to agree with her, like who are going to
• 18:44
  be not agree with her, but they're going to be on her side
• 18:46
  because they don't like migrants and they don't like these
• 18:48
  people. And they're always going to say
• 18:50
  things like, it was your fault for getting on this boat and no
• 18:53
  one asked you to get on this boat.
• 18:55
  She knows she knows all these arguments, but I think that what
• 18:58
  the book's trying to say is that she doesn't actually believe
• 19:00
  these things. She's using them as an excuse to
• 19:03
  hide her own shame of her own actions.
• 19:05
  And I think something that I really loved about the book was
• 19:09
  she talks about her father and her father's so proud of her job
• 19:12
  that she saves people. And then she obviously that's
• 19:16
  that's all part of this, this massive guilt.
• 19:18
  And she, and that she has is the fact that the person that
• 19:22
  actually matters to her is her dad.
• 19:24
  And she has to hide, hide that element of herself from him
• 19:27
  because he's he's saying the thing that she actually
• 19:30
  believes. You know, she's saying the
• 19:32
  things she that he she wants to believe, but she can't.
• 19:35
  She knows she has to hold on to those other beliefs that those
• 19:40
  people in the media have or people here commenting on
• 19:43
  things. You're like, I didn't ask you to
• 19:45
  leave. It's not my fault you thought
• 19:48
  you could, you know, get across the channel.
• 19:50
  But she actually, the whole thing with her dad and her her
• 19:54
  child and everything, I thought this is a real person dealing
• 19:58
  with the fact that they've done something horrific and they know
• 20:02
  that one element of society is going to blame them because they
• 20:06
  have to have someone to blame. And the buck stops with her and
• 20:09
  it does. But also there's so many other
• 20:11
  things between her and and that. And then I think the other side
• 20:15
  of it being the fact that she's like, she can grab on to this, I
• 20:19
  think. Is it or her ex-husband?
• 20:21
  Is quite like quite xenophobic and he has a lot of views that
• 20:23
  he's like, you know, get them all like that migrants need to
• 20:27
  leave all this kind of stuff. And so she, she's kind of
• 20:30
  grabbing for that because that's her life raft for her own mental
• 20:34
  health, but she knows it's wrong, you know, And that's the
• 20:38
  thing I think that's like kind of stayed with me is like how
• 20:40
  people deal with this kind of trauma that she has.
• 20:46
  And there's parts where she needs to take accountability,
• 20:49
  but she can't. She's just trying to hide from
• 20:51
  it. Sorry that's such a massive run.
• 20:53
  No, I think that's great. That's fantastic.
• 20:57
  Yeah, I feel like. I forgot all those details.
• 20:59
  Yeah, I know. I was just thinking about as
• 21:01
  well, you know, is it when she's like eating cereal or something
• 21:05
  and she's almost seeing like people floating in it?
• 21:07
  But there's so many good like imageries and I can't even
• 21:12
  explain in a way. Like there's so many hard
• 21:14
  hitting bits in this novel that you sit with and as soon as you
• 21:18
  close the book it's not leaving your head there.
• 21:23
  Yeah, like, I think it's so interesting how it's run because
• 21:25
  Vincent Della Quoi obviously was not trying to, like, make her be
• 21:29
  the villain. Do, you know, like, she did
• 21:30
  something wrong and stuff. But the book is a much more
• 21:33
  like, forgiving in a way, representation of her.
• 21:37
  And it's like how people can do bad things or make mistakes and,
• 21:40
  like, it causes people to die, but it's not because this, this
• 21:44
  woman is an evil person, you know?
• 21:46
  It's so complex. Like, bad acts don't make bad
• 21:49
  people, you know? I think that it also raises the
• 21:55
  question of, well, who is responsible?
• 21:58
  Is it the French that's responsible for these people
• 22:01
  because they're trying to leave France?
• 22:03
  Is it the English that's responsible because that's where
• 22:06
  these people are trying to get to?
• 22:08
  Is it where these people are from?
• 22:11
  Is it the human traffickers? Is it the people who are making
• 22:15
  this decision themselves and they know that they are risking
• 22:18
  their lives by making this dangerous journey?
• 22:22
  The the fact that is blame shared, is blame pushed on to
• 22:27
  one person. Do we have to accept the blame
• 22:31
  even if we didn't put someone into a specific situation but we
• 22:36
  failed to actually help them? It it kind of raises those moral
• 22:41
  dilemmas and political issues as well, because it is an ongoing
• 22:48
  discussion of who is responsible and what action should be taken
• 22:54
  by each party involved. Yeah, I love that kind of not
• 22:59
  love, but like that element of like, it's so hard to take
• 23:02
  responsibility for your own actions when actually a lot of
• 23:05
  your own actions. I do think she did something
• 23:07
  wrong. It's like they are part of this
• 23:10
  massive web of other people's, you know, of other countries of
• 23:14
  other everything. And it's like all falling on her
• 23:17
  in one moment. And but something I really,
• 23:21
  really loved about the book and I was just remembering there
• 23:23
  when I was kind of looking through it, there was there's an
• 23:26
  honey you were saying about the serial kind of stuff.
• 23:28
  It reminded me of this. It's like she's there's like a
• 23:31
  kind of almost like a dreamlike state where she's she's
• 23:34
  imagining and almost fantasizing about the fact that the the the
• 23:38
  people who have died and have fallen into the sea or like have
• 23:43
  lived again, almost. And I think she imagines one of
• 23:45
  the men, the men, the caller that calls her has like arrived
• 23:49
  on a an island somewhere and is Noi like king.
• 23:52
  And I feel like that's such a sad, like, it reminds me of
• 23:55
  those kind of fantasies where people just, they want to be the
• 23:58
  good person they want to be. Like, she wants to imagine
• 24:01
  everything's OK. And what she did actually had
• 24:04
  some cosmic right. Like, you know, it was a good
• 24:07
  thing to do in the end of the day.
• 24:08
  And I think that the really sad thing is that she knows that
• 24:11
  it's not nothing she's done has helped anyone.
• 24:14
  And yeah, just the. Yeah, it's a it's, it's such a
• 24:19
  sad book. It's such a horrifying book.
• 24:20
  But I think it's a real like portrait of these issues, you
• 24:25
  know? I'd be curious to go back and
• 24:27
  listen I to what we had to say, you know, when we first
• 24:31
  initially covered the book and then think, I don't know if
• 24:34
  there's anything I would say differently my other than like
• 24:38
  all this months later, nearly about a year later, I'm still
• 24:41
  thinking about this book. So it's very like, it's just a
• 24:43
  really powerful book with a message in it, you know?
• 24:48
  How about that's everyone told Mark we have to re listen to
• 24:51
  that episode. It was one of our first, so it
• 24:53
  might be a bit cringy to go back and listen to no.
• 24:57
  I can't, Aaron, I can't do it. I can't listen to my own voice.
• 25:01
  Guess who was who was our guest speaker for the bad episodes?
• 25:06
  Is it what Stacey reads next? Yeah, my hey, I love so much.
• 25:12
  I hope she's not listening, but I do love her so much.
• 25:16
  I'm a bit obsessed. So there.
• 25:17
  I really. Yeah.
• 25:18
  Yeah. Well.
• 25:19
  I think that is a good point to end on.
• 25:22
  If you do want to deeper dive into this book, go back and
• 25:25
  listen to our previous episode when we were discussing this for
• 25:29
  the International Booker Prize 2025.
• 25:33
  OK guys, do we think this one could win?
• 25:36
  What are people's thoughts? For me, I think this is really
• 25:40
  hard because this is just our first novel in and we haven't
• 25:44
  read any of the others. But I'm going to say yeah,
• 25:47
  because it was. So it's it just hasn't left me
• 25:51
  since. So I'm going to say yeah.
• 25:53
  What about you, Aaron? Yeah, I would not be surprised
• 25:57
  if this book won. No, it wasn't my favorite from
• 25:59
  the International Booker Prize shortlist to be determined.
• 26:06
  So far it's my favorite of the Queen Mary long list, but it's
• 26:10
  also the only one that that we've read so I I could see it
• 26:15
  winning. I wouldn't be disappointed if it
• 26:17
  won, but I am definitely excited to explore new titles and and
• 26:21
  see what my thoughts are on the others.
• 26:24
  I think for me, like this is maybe, I think recency bias will
• 26:27
  probably win out in this. And I think this book, because
• 26:29
  we've read so long ago, I think it kind of, well, while I
• 26:31
  enjoyed it the time, I think it's kind of all I've forgotten
• 26:34
  and the new books will kind of knock it out of its way.
• 26:36
  So for me, I don't know if it's going to win for the prize
• 26:38
  potentially. I think it was a really good
• 26:39
  book. So, so like, I don't see why it
• 26:41
  doesn't sound a good chance. And Lucy, what do you think?
• 26:44
  Well, I think I'm going to be that controversial with you,
• 26:47
  Colin. I think I'm going to have
• 26:48
  nostalgia bias because I really like, I think it's only got
• 26:53
  better in my head since reading it.
• 26:55
  So I think it's a really, really high bar, really high bar one.
• 27:00
  But I actually think that all of these are going to be great.
• 27:02
  I can't imagine a scenario where I would be disappointed at this
• 27:06
  book when I So that's all I really have to say about it.
• 27:09
  I know that there might be eventually one that I prefer,
• 27:12
  but I think that there's definitely the books where I've
• 27:14
  been like, that's the worst of a shortlist that I've ever read.
• 27:17
  If it doesn't get shortlisted, I'd be surprised.
• 27:19
  I think it's fantastic. I can't can't see a scenario
• 27:23
  where it wouldn't be and where it wouldn't be deserved.
• 27:26
  The next book we're reading is from the Queen Mary Long List
• 27:30
  and Dremel. Please, everyone.
• 27:36
  So the next one we'll be reading guys, is The Weasel and the
• 27:39
  Whore by Martha Luisa Hernandez Kadenas.
• 27:43
  It's a another translated novel, everyone and it's translated.
• 27:50
  It's translated by Julia Sanchez and Jennifer Shu and it's from
• 27:55
  Eloise Press. So I'm very excited.
• 27:57
  The title of this one got me because I was just laughing at
• 28:01
  it and I'm so glad we're starting with my pick.
• 28:03
  Yes, I also I would like to know if you're my mother.
• 28:07
  Don't leave this one out. Check out our social media for
• 28:10
  our full reading schedule. We're reading five more books
• 28:13
  before the winner is announced. Read along and share your
• 28:16
  thoughts on Instagram at Bookies Favorite book club that's
• 28:19
  favorite with the you and you can also e-mail us at
• 28:22
  bookiesfavoritebookclub@gmail.com. Again, favorite with EU on that
• 28:26
  one. We've got some bonus episodes
• 28:28
  coming too. There are a couple of special
• 28:30
  interview episodes from the team who brought you the novel Eden
• 28:35
  Shore, which has been long listed for the Walter Scott
• 28:38
  Prize for Historical Fiction 2026.
• 28:41
  Lucy and I have recently wrapped up our chapter by chapter read
• 28:44
  along of that novel. We spoke with author Ashin
• 28:48
  Fagin, as well as the narrator of the audio book and the artist
• 28:52
  who worked on the book cover. We also have some bonus content
• 28:56
  for this award examining last year's winner, and we'll
• 28:59
  hopefully be speaking with some people involved with the award
• 29:03
  as well. Also, Aaron has just launched a
• 29:06
  new podcast in which he reads book series is to completion and
• 29:10
  you'll never guess who the 1st guest for the first episode is.
• 29:13
  Our very own Hannah Woo and this episode was released yesterday.
• 29:19
  They launched with On the Calculation of Volume 1, which
• 29:21
  was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize last
• 29:24
  year alongside Small Boat. Check out the novel series
• 29:27
  wherever you listen to podcasts. We've covered other award
• 29:30
  winners in shortlist, including the Booker Prize, so subscribe
• 29:34
  on whatever podcast platform you're listening on so you don't
• 29:37
  miss the next episode. Bookie for this novel, Jean
• 29:41
  Francois Boudard, who is at Nathaniel under score Archer on
• 29:46
  Instagram. You guys, you can find me at
• 29:50
  certified bookie Aparhana on Instagram.
• 29:53
  I'm at. Aaron Rice Media and you'll find
• 29:57
  me at. Books 2026.
• 30:00
  That's books of his ad because the ass was taken.
• 30:04
  Lucy's so cool with her. Z.
• 30:06
  You can find me Colin at C under score.
• 30:10
  F under score writes. Sorry Z.
• 30:13
  This is this is you guys thinking you're like generation
• 30:17
  and then you say ZZ, Yeah. I clapped that too.
• 30:20
  Lucy. Yeah.
• 30:21
  Come on. Where are you living?
• 30:23
  Sorry, sorry bring. Your life out you'll.
• 30:25
  Say as if you're from somewhere and I don't know where, but
• 30:30
  you'll you'll go for the Americanization with the Z.
• 30:35
  Share this episode. With a book lover you'll think
• 30:38
  would love this book. Rate the podcast 5 stars.
• 30:42
  Let's end on a final quote from Small Boat.
• 30:46
  You're not hearing me. You will not be saved.