Latest / Bookies' Favourite / Booker Prize 2025 | Winner Predictions
Transcript
- 0:17Welcome to the club, bookies favorite book club.
- 0:20We discuss literary shortlist and award-winning novels.
- 0:22This episode we're discussing our entire shortlist of the of
- 0:26the Booker Prize. I'm Colin.
- 0:28Did you miss me last week, guys? I did miss you a lot.
- 0:31I think that it let Aaron run free with a lot of his.
- 0:35Oh, no. Dangerous.
- 0:37About rabid dogs and loveliness, I'm Lucy.
- 0:42I'm super excited to here your guys tops like your rankings of
- 0:47the top 6. I'm Aaron.
- 0:49I have completed five of the six books, still have flashlights to
- 0:54complete, but my plan is to get that finished by audiobook
- 0:59before the winner is announced. And I'll share my thoughts on
- 1:02social media if you want to follow us there.
- 1:05Let's start by ranking from the bottom up.
- 1:08Hannah's thoughts will be added in here too.
- 1:11So my number six, it'll be no surprise, is The Rest of Our
- 1:14Lives by Ben Markovich. I thought it wasn't great when I
- 1:19first read it, and then when I kind of looked through it again,
- 1:21I also was like, this is not a great book.
- 1:24I'm a bit surprised it was on the long list, never mind the
- 1:26shortlist. There's definitely better
- 1:28versions of the same book. Many better versions in.
- 1:32Sick place I have the rest of our lives.
- 1:36I just did not get on with this book.
- 1:38I didn't like it on reflection. I give it away.
- 1:42Higher score than I wanted to. I felt pressured at the time to
- 1:46do that because I thought everyone else enjoyed it.
- 1:49I'm missing something on reflection.
- 1:51Don't think I'm missing it. I love the idea of it.
- 1:55Execution for me just didn't hit.
- 1:57So in sick place for giving it the rest of our lives.
- 2:00All of these books kind of are middling for me.
- 2:04None are absolutely amazing, none are terrible.
- 2:08So this list could change literally in 10 minutes if I
- 2:13rerank them. So this is just what I'm going
- 2:16with right now. My #5 book.
- 2:20Currently last place is Audition.
- 2:27Riots in the streets. Not even slightly.
- 2:33Well, hold yourself back, Lucy. Just he doesn't.
- 2:36He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve it.
- 2:38No, I just feel like it's, I just feel like we're reading
- 2:40different books maybe. I don't know.
- 2:43Different, different publications.
- 2:45Why is it last? Thanks for you.
- 2:48And I think it just felt a little hollow and incomplete,
- 2:57and I really enjoyed the conversation around it.
- 3:00But the further away I get from the actual book, the more that
- 3:06I'm like, well, kind of what was the point?
- 3:09What did it really mean? Was there a point?
- 3:12I feel like the rest of these books do have a point and I just
- 3:16feel like auditionals maybe lacking that.
- 3:19My #5 book is the Land of Winter.
- 3:23I don't think this is a surprise because I found it so, so drab
- 3:28and just OK and uninteresting. Like kind of like Aaron, I think
- 3:33this list changes around. I don't think any of these books
- 3:36are absolutely stellar, but I like this one I can definitively
- 3:41place in my least favorite position.
- 3:44So Lisa Lisa wins the award for for that.
- 3:47The next year are going to be kind of hard to rank just
- 3:50because like you all said, it's they're all either like 3 or 3.5
- 3:54out of 5 S in 5th place. I'm giving it to the land in
- 3:59winter again. Really enjoyed the book, thought
- 4:03it was great. Sometimes I felt like it was a
- 4:05bit long and I think if we got a bit more about say the Asylum,
- 4:12that movie would have been a bit more interesting.
- 4:14But at the end, the scene where it's kind of like an alien
- 4:18abduction type thing, well, not abduction, but like the alien
- 4:21part I thought was quite good. So yeah, overall OK.
- 4:26But giving it 5th place. I'm going to say the exact same
- 4:29thing. My number 5 is also the land in
- 4:31winter. I just really didn't connect
- 4:33massively. I thought there were bits of it
- 4:35that were better than the rest of our lives with like the
- 4:38writing and yeah, just the general characters I felt more
- 4:42for. So that's why it was it's it's a
- 4:45good bit ahead, I think of the rest of our lives.
- 4:47But it's still like, I think these next three books that I'm
- 4:50going to describe, they're all like interchangeable in, in
- 4:53rankings. But yeah, I thought I did find
- 4:56it too boring. My number 4 is not a million
- 4:58miles away from you guys. I am landing on the land in
- 5:01winter. I actually really enjoyed it and
- 5:05I think that's because all of you guys set my expectations so
- 5:09low and I wish that I had been part of the conversation.
- 5:14And I think because you had all made me aware that it ends in a
- 5:18spaceship, I was picking up on all of the like themes and
- 5:25allusions to that beforehand. Like I'm pretty sure that that
- 5:30Eric sees a flying saucer at one point and.
- 5:36Oh my God, Aaron, of course. Yeah, while he's while he's
- 5:40rendezvousing with Alison and he looks into the sky and sees an
- 5:45aeroplane and or something he's like, well, that that must be an
- 5:50aeroplane because it's about airplane height, but it's not
- 5:53moving like an airplane. And and you know, like knowing
- 5:58what happens at the end, I was like, hmm, like what else could
- 6:01it be apart from a flying saucer?
- 6:03And so, yeah, I actually really did enjoy it, but it's it's
- 6:07coming in at #4 for me. My number four pick is the Rest
- 6:10of our Lives, which I, I'm actually surprised.
- 6:12I thought it was going to go higher because when we were
- 6:15talking about, I actually enjoy quite a lot of the conversations
- 6:17and stuff. But on reflection, like enjoy
- 6:19the competitions we had about it and the themes are brought up.
- 6:22But again, it itself wasn't really good at diving into those
- 6:25themes and I think I wanted more from that.
- 6:27So it's solidly 4th place for me. 4th place and giving it to
- 6:32the loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.
- 6:35I really liked the book even though it was 670 pages, I
- 6:41thought that it flew by. Love the exploration of the
- 6:45different family and the family dynamics and the idea of being,
- 6:50say, like the person's from India but struggling to me like
- 6:52emigrate in America and that struggle of identity and that
- 6:57longing of home and that idea. Yeah, it was really good.
- 7:02Enjoyed it? I think now this is my kind of
- 7:05was third and 4th place for my big like I'm so torn between
- 7:09them. I actually have them at exactly
- 7:11the same rank and it's been almost impossible to move
- 7:14between them. I'm even toying it with it now.
- 7:16But I put Flesh at #4 I just thought I was trying to think
- 7:20with the other with like which one?
- 7:23And I don't want to spoil my number 3, but I was kind of like
- 7:26there were parts of the number three book where I was like, oh,
- 7:28this is actually, I'm really, really thinking about it.
- 7:31And I think flesh definitely much better than the Lands of
- 7:35Winter and the rest of our lives.
- 7:37But it still maybe lacked a bit of something like a bit of like
- 7:41a lot of the characters. I didn't really love that much,
- 7:45but I do see what David Sloe was doing and I think he was trying
- 7:48to do something quite brave in some respects.
- 7:50So I I give him that. But he's, he's coming in at #4.
- 7:54My number 3 is the Loneliness of Sonia and Sonny.
- 7:59I thought it was a well written book.
- 8:01It was definitely enjoyable and I really enjoyed the characters,
- 8:07but maybe it's just not my kind of book overall.
- 8:11It's just kind of there and, and I'm not hateful that I I read
- 8:16it. My third is Flesh, again, sort
- 8:20of echoing Lucy anyway, but I I I like this overall, but I think
- 8:25when I compare it to the top two it just didn't really hit the
- 8:29same as the others. For 3rd, I'm giving it to
- 8:31Flashlight. The reason why I found it really
- 8:36really hard to play is The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
- 8:38and Flashlight because I both really like them.
- 8:42I think The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny was written better,
- 8:46but I love the political kind of situation in Flashlight and
- 8:53exploring that at times. I thought it was quite long and
- 8:57I think Flashlight definitely could have been edited down into
- 9:01a smaller novel, but I really, yeah, I really did enjoy it.
- 9:04I thought it was great. Yeah, my number 3 is flashlight
- 9:08and yeah I was so torn between this and Flash because I thought
- 9:11Flash was a simpler read, like a quicker.
- 9:13Read. So I did enjoy it for that
- 9:15purpose. And flashlight was almost the
- 9:17exact opposite. It was not a quicker easy read,
- 9:20but I do think that it may be said more and there was a lot of
- 9:22things that I really, really enjoyed with it.
- 9:25So it was, it was that was really tough because I was like,
- 9:28I'm ranking these on very different for different reasons.
- 9:31And you know, yeah, it was tough to, but definitely like in my
- 9:35enjoyment levels, they were very, very similar.
- 9:38But I think flashlight was maybe a bit more deep, a bit more
- 9:41depth, something more interesting.
- 9:43This brings us to the top 2. So are we all just going to
- 9:47reveal our our number ones? My number one is flesh.
- 9:53I just really enjoyed that one. I I really enjoyed our central
- 9:58character. Now it was, it had its faults.
- 10:01It definitely lost my interest about midway through, but I
- 10:07really, really enjoyed the first part of that novel.
- 10:12And that that then means that The Rest of Our Lives is number
- 10:162 for me. Again, it might have been
- 10:19expectation setting and the fact that I was going in with no
- 10:24expectations or well, the lowest of expectations and it
- 10:29definitely surpassed those. I did enjoy it and again, I had
- 10:35faults. It had faults and but yeah,
- 10:38that's my top 2. My number one is Flashlight I
- 10:44think. While I still have problems with
- 10:45it, I actually think that the plot was the most engaging and
- 10:48the themes I was talking about were the most enjoyable to me as
- 10:51well. And the characters are
- 10:53interesting. And while it was long and
- 10:55overrid and I think it still did did its job very, very well.
- 10:58And that means coming in second is Audition, which I think
- 11:00Audition was one of those ones that kind of moved a bottle out
- 11:03on the list for me. But then now I like I feel like
- 11:06it's a second place book in in my head.
- 11:07You know, I still really enjoyed it and I think it's quite close
- 11:11between it and Flashlight, but I like more concrete stories and
- 11:14Flashlight was very much that, whereas Audition was a bit more
- 11:17open-ended, even though I think Audition was better rated.
- 11:19I'm giving my first place to audition.
- 11:22I I think for me, this is the book that really changed my mind
- 11:28on it on the second read. So I had read audition and I had
- 11:33messaged Lucy and said what have I been reading?
- 11:36I don't like it. You know, what is this book?
- 11:39And I give it a second chance and we listening to it on audio
- 11:42book before our discussion and I really liked it.
- 11:46And from that, we also got to discuss chapters where I pick
- 11:51out and think they're a bit weird.
- 11:53And out of all of these six books, the only book that's
- 11:57completely stuck with me, and I think about it a little bit, is
- 11:59audition. You know the scene I'm talking
- 12:02about where they're like, on the ground and playing, like,
- 12:04falling around. So bizarre.
- 12:08But yeah. And give an audition first
- 12:10place. Overall, I'm not sure I really
- 12:13enjoyed this year's Booker Prize list.
- 12:16I think the Internationalist was much better compared to this in
- 12:19second place and giving it to flesh it was like I just even
- 12:26going back and listening to on the audio book made me
- 12:30appreciate the book even more. Really enjoyed it.
- 12:33Thought it was an easy read, went by really fast and yeah I
- 12:39love the characters. I loved our discussion on it as
- 12:42well. My number one is, and it's
- 12:46actually maybe #1 by we, a good bet is Audition, though I don't
- 12:51think it's a perfect novel. And I think it was definitely
- 12:54ones that were left off the long list that were maybe better.
- 12:56And I just thought it was actually like trying to do
- 12:59something. And I really quite emotionally
- 13:01engaged me and it was like well written.
- 13:05It was bolder than any of the other books.
- 13:08It was trying to do something that they were not trying to do
- 13:10and trying to deal with an issue in a way that was novel.
- 13:14And I think that actually for me really, I get why people don't
- 13:17like it, but for me, it really pulled it off.
- 13:18It was really, I found it very emotional and very like, oh,
- 13:23wow. And I didn't really relate to
- 13:24any of the characters. I was thinking that on the other
- 13:26side the rest of our lives, I didn't really relate to any of
- 13:28the characters in it, but this one, I also didn't relate to
- 13:30them. But it's a it's a brilliant
- 13:32book. Like it's well written.
- 13:33It's got like it's trying to actually dive into these ideas
- 13:37in a way that's not like this happened, you know, which I
- 13:41think was really smart of her. And I think that, yeah, I
- 13:44really, really enjoyed it. And then number 2 was the
- 13:46loneliness of Sonia and Sonny. I think it was just really solid
- 13:49book, just really well written. Loved the themes through it like
- 13:55very long, but also like it's just yeah, really solid, whereas
- 13:59I don't I think from three down I had just massive problems with
- 14:05with those other books. There you have it, our ranking.
- 14:08Not a hive mind anymore, which is interesting, no?
- 14:11We broke it somehow. I don't know what's going to
- 14:13happen. No, Lucy and I are going to go
- 14:16through our thoughts on the shortlist in general.
- 14:20I think to be honest, our discussions made me realize how
- 14:24not great the all the books were.
- 14:27Like I think a lot of the time our conversations around the
- 14:30books were better than the books themselves, which I think isn't
- 14:33isn't great for the the authors. Yeah, I found it a really bland,
- 14:38bland shortlist, bland long list.
- 14:40I think they missed out a couple of really good ones from the
- 14:43long list. Didn't make it to the shortlist,
- 14:44which was quite sad. I just can't imagine that out of
- 14:46100 and however many books that they read that those were the,
- 14:50those were the 6th best. Like I, I don't know, I'm just
- 14:54surprised, I suppose as well as you say, like it's a jury.
- 14:56So it's, it's very much like, I imagine there's some books that
- 15:01are quite polarizing. Like I imagine audition is very
- 15:04polarizing. So it's not going to immediately
- 15:08be everyone's kind of like, oh, that was OK.
- 15:10There's going to be people here like that was the best and
- 15:12there's going to be people like that's the worst.
- 15:15So I suppose you don't get as many books like that.
- 15:18Maybe with the jury. I was quite disappointed by the
- 15:20whole thing. I much I don't know about you,
- 15:21but I much preferred the International.
- 15:23Yes, I much preferred the international.
- 15:26I think those higher highs and lower lows for the international
- 15:29for me, and while yes, this just feels like they're all middling
- 15:35books, we had previously said that we were going to go through
- 15:39and give our star ratings, our actual star ratings on all of
- 15:43these books. I don't even know if I can
- 15:45settle on really definitive star ratings as well of like even at
- 15:50this point. And I think all of these books
- 15:53are three apart from maybe Flesh which I would give 4 but even
- 15:57then like I don't even know if it deserves a full 4 from me.
- 16:02OK, that's interesting. Yeah, like I just yeah, I agree.
- 16:05I think there's a lot of there's a lot of threes, there's a lot
- 16:08of threes and it's so hard to rank those, but I find it much
- 16:12easier to rank the internationals.
- 16:14I was so much more into them, like I felt more passionate
- 16:16about them. Whereas like these ones I was
- 16:17kind of like, I don't even care where it appears on my list
- 16:20because with the international I was kind of like my 4th 1 still
- 16:24really good. I really enjoyed it.
- 16:26I'm seeing the same with my fifth one and to extent I really
- 16:29enjoyed them all. Whereas this was like, no, there
- 16:33were, there were definitely like lows and mediums for me.
- 16:37I don't think any of these Spooks didn't have a dull point
- 16:40for me. Like whenever I think about it,
- 16:45Audition, it was engaging because of the kind of like
- 16:50mystery of like what's happening, but it's kind of
- 16:53dragged a bit here and there and for a short book like it.
- 16:57Dragged. That's so interesting.
- 16:58Well. Maybe dragging is the wrong
- 17:02word, but it I had a lapse of interests at points because I
- 17:08was like, well, kind of like, where's this going?
- 17:10Yeah, the the mystery did help keep me engaged, but just on
- 17:15reflection and like, well, it but it wasn't necessarily.
- 17:19I don't think it's a mystery. I know what you mean, I know.
- 17:22I think we're seeing this completely differently.
- 17:25But whenever I send mystery, I don't mean that it's setting up
- 17:29something for us to figure out, but more it knocks the reader
- 17:34off of their like axis where you're trying to get to grips
- 17:38with with. Yeah.
- 17:40Kind of the story and and seeing how the the two parts connect
- 17:45with each other or don't connect maybe.
- 17:47And then for the land and winter, from the like dinner
- 17:51party on Boxing Day on, it's just kind of.
- 17:54Yeah. Faded for me and blurred in my
- 17:57mind. That one I was expecting to
- 18:00really enjoy and then I just it did just drag for me so much and
- 18:03there were so many parts that where I was like, oh, this is
- 18:05actually quite interesting. Didn't mind the dinner party.
- 18:07I didn't mind the snow bit where your woman's pregnant.
- 18:10Those two bits. I didn't mind the two women in
- 18:13it. I just didn't really care about
- 18:15the man, which sounds bad, but that was like, well, actually I
- 18:18liked one of the women. I think I didn't really care
- 18:20about the other one, but it was kind of like I wasn't.
- 18:24I just wasn't expecting to be that disengaged from it.
- 18:26I thought it was going to be really, really good because it
- 18:27won the the Walter Scott Historical.
- 18:30The Walters, Yeah, yes. I was kind of expecting to
- 18:33really enjoy it, but yeah, definitely felt completely flat
- 18:35for me. Who do you think's gonna win?
- 18:37That's actually maybe a bigger. Is that in a different section I
- 18:41think? It probably is if I had to
- 18:44choose a winner out of these books and.
- 18:50Well. I don't know if you have this
- 18:52knowledge, but do you think the judges will have reread all of
- 18:57the books yet again since they've shortlisted them and
- 19:00then made their decision? Yeah, I think they probably
- 19:03will. OK, so that makes me think it's
- 19:06going to be a book that is going to reward rereading, which we
- 19:11already know that. That's why they selected all of
- 19:14these books. So you think Audition is going
- 19:19to be the winner? No, I think that.
- 19:21I think, I do not think audition's going to be the
- 19:23winner, but you know, it is. I think I bet it's going to be
- 19:27the rest of our lives. It's all, it's usually the one I
- 19:30like the least that is 100% of my sex I Profit song, which won
- 19:37a while ago. It wasn't my favorite, but it
- 19:40wasn't my least favorite, so maybe, maybe I'll have one
- 19:45that's like in the middle of the pack, but it's usually my least
- 19:48favorite. If I have to pick what I think
- 19:51the judges will land on as their winner, maybe the loneliness of
- 19:57Sonia and Sonny, just because it's so vast and there's so many
- 20:00characters that they might find something new that that they
- 20:03hadn't found before that might make them fall in love with the
- 20:07book all over again or, or something.
- 20:09I would love it to be either Audition or The Loneliness of
- 20:12Sonia and Sonny. I have a feeling it might be
- 20:14Flesh or The Rest of Our Lives. Those are the ones I think I'm
- 20:18going to predict that will win. So I think that those two books
- 20:21probably would be be a safer choices, definitely safer
- 20:27choices. During this shortlist reading,
- 20:30we have had a couple of bookies share their thoughts and hopes
- 20:35for which novel they expect to win.
- 20:39Let's start with Bob the Booker. My personal favorite, if not
- 20:42audition, would probably be either The Land in Winter or
- 20:46Flesh by David Salloy. And here are the thoughts of
- 20:49Dimna Flynn. For me the one that really
- 20:52stands out is The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, a fantastic
- 20:58and very deep and sometimes rather strange account of two
- 21:04couples during the big freeze in Rural England in 1962.
- 21:10This is a stand out novel for me.
- 21:13So a few of try favorite things has reached out to us as well on
- 21:17social media and Ashley has said that her prediction for the
- 21:21winner is audition, but then she has included in brackets maybe
- 21:27flashlight or the loneliness of Sonia and Sonny.
- 21:30So she kind of has gone for half of the the shortlist there.
- 21:34I think she's going for wishful thinking as well.
- 21:37I don't. I never believe that what I want
- 21:39to win will win. Upon reflection of the entire
- 21:41shortlist, we have had Maddie get in contact with us.
- 21:46She's on Instagram books with Maddie and she had thoughts on
- 21:51audition after hearing our episode on that and wanted to
- 21:56share her theory. I really enjoyed Audition, and
- 21:59so much of that enjoyment has come from hearing other people's
- 22:03interpretations of it. The diversity of interpretation
- 22:06that I've seen has brought me back to this quote from the
- 22:08book, which reads. I thought that it was true that
- 22:11a performance existed in the space between the work and the
- 22:14audience, that it existed and was made in that space of
- 22:18interpretation. And it almost felt to me as
- 22:20though Katie Kadamura was saying this to the readers themselves.
- 22:24Because I think the readers play a big role in this novel.
- 22:27And Kadamura is trying to signal that test very subtly.
- 22:31Like the narrator's inability to distinguish what is real and not
- 22:34real mirrors the reader's inability to distinguish what is
- 22:37real and not real as the book unravels.
- 22:40And this kept bringing me back to this quote from Part 1, which
- 22:43reads I never confused the experience depicted on stage or
- 22:47on screen with the experience of my actual life.
- 22:50The material simply did not have the requisite dimensionality.
- 22:54There was nothing in these parts that had the stab, the throb,
- 22:58the unruliness of the real. But things changed.
- 23:01The film with Murata was important.
- 23:03I was more a person in that role than I'd ever been before.
- 23:07And later still there were parts that consumed me so that I could
- 23:10say the life that was performed on a set or in a theatre could
- 23:14at times feel more real to me than my actual life.
- 23:17It was also a danger for a person of my disposition for
- 23:21whom the managing of these borders was not always easy.
- 23:25So here the narrator herself admits that she cannot manage
- 23:28the borders of reality versus performance, which is
- 23:31interesting because we seemingly never get to see her actually
- 23:34perform or hear that described. But we do know that she can't
- 23:38manage the borders. So then we actually must believe
- 23:41that at any moment what she's describing in Part 2 could in
- 23:44fact be a performance, even if we don't receive any signal that
- 23:48it is. Because she's so successful in
- 23:51Part 2 with Rivers, that suggests that her immersion in
- 23:55the Unreal is deep and potentially unmanaged.
- 23:58So my theory is the reason that we are not able to make sense of
- 24:01the two parts is because Part 2 is a mixture of reality and
- 24:05performance due to this immersion.
- 24:07So some parts that she's describing is actually part of
- 24:10Rivers and further as Rivers begins to wrap up, this is like
- 24:14the exact same time that she just clears to Thomas that it's
- 24:17over and her immersion completes at the same time that the
- 24:22families facade collapses. So like I'm thinking without the
- 24:26success of her performance in Rivers Part 2 might have looked
- 24:30very different as she would have been able to manage the borders
- 24:33between the real and unreal, and maybe it would have been a lot
- 24:35more understandable. But I really love where books
- 24:38where the audience's interpretation deeply matters to
- 24:40how the book reads. I think Kitamura had to let go
- 24:43of her own interpretations in order to create this deeply
- 24:47unique experience. I loved that.
- 24:49That was really cool. I was kind of thinking about
- 24:51what I thought of the whole second part and like, what does
- 24:54it mean and what is she trying to say?
- 24:55Because I really struggled with like with that kind of side of
- 24:58things and especially with the second part.
- 25:00And I was listening to Book Fair podcasts, and they were talking
- 25:05about how it's almost like, I don't know if we discussed this
- 25:08in our version, but it's almost like she's trying to act this
- 25:13part and everybody's changing the lines and everybody's
- 25:16changing what's happening. And everything's not clear to
- 25:20her why people are acting in certain ways.
- 25:22It's almost like everybody has a back story that's not been
- 25:24agreed on with her or also that they're like, what's the word
- 25:28improvise? It was like an improvisational
- 25:31performance. So she's like, everyone's
- 25:33adapting to different things, but she's not quite there with,
- 25:36like, her eyes. Yeah.
- 25:38It's a brilliant book. It's so good.
- 25:39It's such a good book. It's really smart.
- 25:42Yeah, I think that that perspective is, I can definitely
- 25:45see that. And I think that what Mali says
- 25:48at the end about how Katie Kinamara had to step away and,
- 25:56and maybe it is clear upon reflection that that the author
- 26:04doesn't even understand it or doesn't even necessarily know
- 26:08how how it all played out. And maybe that is what adds to
- 26:13the confusion or the, the mystery or whatever you want to
- 26:17describe it as. But I, I can definitely see that
- 26:21interpretation. I think that that is kind of a
- 26:24blend of what people have said before, where some people say
- 26:30that's completely scripted. We're seeing the performance
- 26:33within the performance. And then some people are
- 26:37thinking, no, this is an alternate reality.
- 26:40Or like me, you think it's just kind of the same continuation of
- 26:46reality. But something has altered in her
- 26:49mind where she sees she's confused herself about what is
- 26:54real and what isn't. So Maddie kind of combines all
- 26:57of those things and says, well, it is she's taken on this
- 27:02performance and but it's still her real life.
- 27:05And yeah, I think that's a really interesting thought.
- 27:11And I can see what she only really came up with that theory
- 27:15after hearing other people's thoughts, because it is kind of
- 27:18an amalgamation of thoughts. I think for me with audition,
- 27:24because I think Katie Kimura said something about the fact
- 27:27that it's like we need to try and hold different ideas in our
- 27:29heads at the same time, even though there's conflicting
- 27:32information. It's like, I think she spoke
- 27:34about like cognitive dissonance and the fact that we do it every
- 27:36day in our general lives. We hold multiple different
- 27:39beliefs that are are different in our heads at the one time.
- 27:42And the idea that literature can do that for me, there's so much
- 27:45about performance is linked into it and there's so much about
- 27:49being a mother linked into it. And those two themes, I think
- 27:51she's trying to convey an emotion and feelings that
- 27:56mothers have through acting and through like, and something that
- 28:01really hit home with me is the idea that everybody is always
- 28:04kind of acting in a general sense.
- 28:06Like I, I find that I don't really know that I, I think too
- 28:09much about, Oh, what exactly is happening here?
- 28:11Like what is the exact concrete? Like, is she in a play?
- 28:15Is she in an alternate universe? I, I don't think, for me, I
- 28:19don't think those things really matter to me.
- 28:21It's about the fact that it's like she's using this conduit to
- 28:25be like, this is, this is motherhood.
- 28:27And I'm again, not a mother, so I don't know if I can
- 28:29necessarily 100% relate. But like all these kind of
- 28:33things, it's like we are always putting on an act of like what
- 28:37we think we should be saying and what we should think should be
- 28:40doing. And it's like a lot of the time
- 28:42in general, I think that we don't do what we would naturally
- 28:46do. We do a performance of what we
- 28:48think we should be doing and what we think we are and what we
- 28:51think we should be. And I really love that.
- 28:52I thought it was in a way that none of the other books I think
- 28:55and in any way did that. I think that this one really, I
- 28:59tried to do something different and I think she really pulled it
- 29:02off and that was really good. Did you find the Bookies
- 29:05productions? They all seem kind of very
- 29:07similar and in last place with 7 to 1 odds were Audition and
- 29:14Flesh and. Oh wow, both my my loser and my
- 29:19winner. In one I I think though I could,
- 29:24I could put money on both of those because I think that like.
- 29:27It's so really it. Really isn't something that you
- 29:30can put odds on at all. So I'm kind of like you could
- 29:33probably make you can probably make a bit of money if you put
- 29:35like £100 on both of those because they could easily win.
- 29:38They probably won't. But like and the next one, which
- 29:42is just six to one is flashlight.
- 29:44I don't know if I'm particularly surprised at this.
- 29:46And the rest of our lives is 5 to 1.
- 29:48All those are kind of similar odds.
- 29:50And then I think actually it's no surprise that the top 2 the
- 29:53land in winter is 2 to 1. And that might be because I'm
- 29:58imagining when they're trying to work out Patty Par this is, and
- 30:01I think it's most of the other ones I looked at this are
- 30:03similar, but I'm imagining because it won the the other
- 30:06prize. It's kind of higher up on their
- 30:09list of, oh, this could be another prize winner or at least
- 30:11they're changing their odds for that.
- 30:13And then I think no surprise, the loneliness of Sonia and
- 30:16Sonny is number one with 7 to 4. So very high odds.
- 30:20That's probably because she's won before.
- 30:22That's what I'm assuming is happening there.
- 30:24And but yeah, I don't, I don't think that I think it's all to
- 30:27play for. I don't, I do not think that the
- 30:29betting companies have a particularly good, good idea of
- 30:33what's what's going to be there. But yeah, probably very few
- 30:36people bet on it. So they can just put whatever
- 30:38odds they want. I'm intrigued, I'm intrigued.
- 30:40I'm excited to know who wins. I think I'm going to be either
- 30:42very, very upset or very happy. You can definitely find out our
- 30:47our thoughts on the winner and we'll be uploading a reaction
- 30:50episode after the winner is announced on Monday.
- 30:53So stay tuned for that and definitely send us your own
- 30:58reactions and thoughts to the winner.
- 31:01You can send that through on Instagram.
- 31:04We are at bookies favorite or you can send it by e-mail.
- 31:08That is bookies favorite bookclub@gmail.com.
- 31:13Bookies out. Bye.
- 31:18Bye.