Last night at midnight (no I don’t know why midnight either) the Wellcome Prize announced their shortlist, and the books that they have chosen are:
Amateur: A true story about what makes a man by Thomas Page McBee
Heart: A history by Sandeep Jauhar
Mind on Fire: A memoir of madness and recovery by Arnold Thomas Fanning
Murmur by Will Eaves
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
The Trauma Cleaner: One woman’s extraordinary life in death, decay and disaster by Sarah Krasnostein
The shortlist has two novels on it this year, Murmur by Will Eaves and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, neither of which I have read yet but have them reserved from the library. The remainder of the shortlist is non-fiction. Two of the authors are writing about gender, with Thomas Page McBee looking at masculinity and violence as he becomes the first trans man to box at Madison Square Garden in Amateur. Sarah Krasnostein’s book, The Trauma Cleaner, is a biography about Sandra Pankhurst who was a husband, father, drag queen, sex worker, wife – and how her journey through childhood abuse, trauma and transphobic hostility has led her to care to both the living and the dead.
Heart by Sandeep Jauhar is fairly self-explanatory as to what it is about and Mind on Fire is Arnold Thomas Fanning personal story of his battle with mania, psychosis and severe depression and how he has survived the mental torment.
As a Shadow Panel, comprising Rebecca from Bookish Beck, Annabel from Annabookbel, Laura from Dr. Laura Tisdall and Clare from A Little Blog of Books we had an opportunity to vote on the favourites that we had and from that chose seven books for our shortlist:
Amateur: A true story about what makes a man by Thomas Page McBee
Educated by Tara Westover
Heart: A history by Sandeep Jauhar
Murmur by Will Eaves
Sight by Jessie Greengrass
The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein
So we guessed four of them correctly!
These were the ones that I had nominated based on the few that I have read and what fitted the brief as my suggestion for the shortlist and I had also got four correct:
Amateur: A true story about what makes a man by Thomas Page McBee
Murmur by Will Eaves
Heart: A history by Sandeep Jauhar
Mind on Fire: A memoir of madness and recovery by Arnold Thomas Fanning
Polio: The Odyssey of eradication by Thomas Abraham
This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein
Have you read any of them? Are there any that you want to read having seen this list? Let me know below.
So I’ve got 4 to read, but plans in place to get copies! I was puzzled why they picked the Moshfegh over Greengrass. Looking forward to seeing what our panel think of those they’ve not read yet, including your thoughts of course.
I have got five to read. Have three with the others incoming from the library!! I genuinely don’t know how they conclude on a shortlist unless they do something similar to us