The Reader Online

Marilynne Robinson’s third novel Home has been awaded the Orange Prize for Fiction, beating favourite to win Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman. Home retells the story of Robinson’s second novel, Gilead, from a different perspective, giving readers a closer look at the other great character: Jack Broughton, who returns home in order to make peace with his dying father. In Robinson’s own words:

I didn’t want to make Jack a good man in a conventional sense, I wanted to make him a person of value in terms of the whole complexity of his life.

On the decision to award Robinson the prize, Fi Glover, Chairman of the judging panel says:

We were unanimously agreed – it is a profound work of art

See which other novels were short-listed here.

The Reader No.32 featured an extract from Home, and you can find details on how to get hold of a copy here.

The shortlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction has been announced today. The books that are in the running for the  £30,000 prize (and a limited edition bronze figurine called the ‘Bessie’ – both anonymously endowed) are:

Scottsboro
Ellen Feldman

The Wilderness
Samantha Harvey

The Invention of Everything Else
Samantha Hunt

Molly Fox’s Birthday
Deirdre Madden

Home
Marilynne Robinson

Burnt Shadows
Kamila Shamsie

In issue 32 of The Reader magazine we published an exclusive extract from Marilynne Robinson’s Home (if you haven’t read the whole novel yet, why not buy a copy of the magazine for a taster?), so we’re delighted to see that it’s been nominated for this award. Perhaps it will follow in the path of Liverpool Reads‘ book 2007, Small Island , which won the award in 2004.

Have you read any of this years shortlisted books? Are you going to? If so, we’d love to hear from you: send in your reviews (no more than 100 words, please) to info@thereader.org.uk and we’ll post them on this blog. Keep on the look out for thoughts from our staff on the shortlisted books too.

To celebrate the 400th birthday of John Milton tomorrow, we offer (not only an issue of The Reader dedicated to him but also) the great closing lines of Paradise Lost. The Serpent has beguiled Eve . She has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge and given it to Adam. God has cursed them and now they are sent forth from Eden (here’s William Blake’s illustration of the expulsion).

Paradise Lost Book 12

So spake our Mother Eve, and Adam heard
Well pleased, but answered not; for now too nigh
The Archangel stood, and from the other hill
To their fixed station, all in bright array?
The Cherubim descended; on the ground
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist?
Risen from a river o’er the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the labourer’s heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanced,?
The brandished sword of God before them blazed?
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,?
And vapour as the Libyan air adust
Began to parch that temperate clime; whereat?
In either hand the hastening Angel caught?
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate?
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast?
To the subjected plain; then disappeared.
They looking back, all the eastern side beheld?
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,?
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate?
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:?
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose?
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:?
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,?
Through Eden took their solitary way.

John Milton

Angels, Archangels, Cherabim’s, flaming swords, meteors: the picture, bathed in mighty, terrible light, is at once terrifying and beautiful. The angel, presumably holding Adam and Eve by the hand, abandons the weeping, fallen couple at the gate of Paradise. With something like childlike wonder their tears are short lived when as one, they turn to face forwards and hand in hand take their first tentative steps into a brand new world in which together they will remain forever and separately, lost .

Buy a gift subscription now (£24 for one year) and we will send your friend or family member (or yourself!) the latest issue of The Reader (32, ‘Happy 400th Birthday Mr Milton’) absolutely free. Issue 32 contains new poetry by Andrew Motion and an exlusive extract from Marilynne Robinson’s latest novel Home – it’s not to be missed.

They (or you!) will then receive four more issues of The Reader magazine throughout 2009, treating them to all of the poems, essays, stories and reviews in the forthcoming year. The first issue of the year includes new poetry by David Constantine, Gary Allen, Andrew McNeillie and Angela Leighton; there is new fiction from Clive Sinclair, the conclusion of Mary Weston’s three-part story, The Junction; and far more besides… 

A subscription to The Reader is the ideal Christmas gift for literature lovers and it will last the whole year.

Subscribe: via PayPal on our website; send a cheque (made payable to The Reader Organisation) to The Reader (subscriptions), 19 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 7ZG; or you can arrange to pay by Direct Debit by calling us on 0151 794 2830. All our contact details are available here.

The latest issue of The Reader (32, Winter 2008) is available to buy now.  

The Reader 32 is published in honour of a very special birthday - Mr John Milton’s 400th (9th December 1608) - and to celebrate, we have some superb features in this issue, including:

An exclusive extract, reprinted with kind permission from the author, of Marilynne Robinson’s latest novel Home; plus, there’s new poetry by Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion.

The great event of the 400th anniversary of Mr Milton’s birthday is celebrated with essays by Brian Nellist and Jane Davis.

Also in this issue is the second installment of Mary Weston’s short novel The Junction (you can now download the first part from the downloads page on our website); Adam Phillips writes on Auden’s magic; Laura Coyne is the latest ‘Poet on Her Work’; D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers is the novel for ‘Readers Connect’; and there is much in this issue for you gumshoes out there. Our very own Blog Man, Chris Routledge, adds to his occasional Crime Spree series with a piece on Dashiell Hammett, creator of The Maltese Falcon, and American crime writer Fred Zackel (Cocaine and Blue Eyes) joins in the praise for Hammett with an essay that reads like the voiceover of a film noir.

Buy a single issue of The Reader 32 here or subscribe to the magazine here -a Christmas present for yourself, or for a friend, perhaps?  If you’d like to ‘try before you buy’, a downloadable version of The Reader 31 is available for free from here.