BLC: Big Jubilee Read 4

Hi Everyone,

We've reached decade 4 of the Big Jubilee Read -- thank you to everyone who's joined in the challenge over the past few months.

We're up to 1982-1991.

I'm pleased to see one of my all-time favourite books on the list -- Jackie Kay's Adoption Papers -- but I'll obviously choose a book I haven't read before for my own swap.

For anyone who's joining the Jubilee swaps for the first time, I'll repeat the background information.

The BBC (the public service TV and radio broadcaster in England) have announced the the titles for the Big Jubilee Read, a reading for pleasure campaign celebrating great reads from celebrated authors from across the Commonwealth, celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

They started with a readers' choice longlist, then the list was whittled down by a panel of librarians, booksellers and literature specialists.

The full list can be found at Literary Celebration. On that page if you click on "More about these novels" you get a little synopsis of each book.

There are 70 books on the list -- 10 books from each decade of the Queen's Reign. The books come from a wide range of Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom.

I thought it might be fun to read a book from each decade!

The books for the fourth decade, 1982-1991, are:

Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally (1982, Australia)

Beka Lamb – Zee Edgell (1982, Belize)

The Bone People – Keri Hulme (1984, New Zealand)

The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (1985, Canada)

Summer Lightning – Olive Senior (1986, Jamaica)

The Whale Rider – Witi Ihimaera (1987, New Zealand)

The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (1989, England)

Omeros – Derek Walcott (1990, Saint Lucia)

The Adoption Papers – Jackie Kay (1991, Scotland)

Cloudstreet – Tim Winton (1991, Australia)

For this swap, choose and read one of the books from the fourth decade of the queen's reign.

Email your partners and tell them about the book you read. It's up to you what you say, but you might want to think about questions like why did you choose this book? Was it a world you know about or one that was new to you? Did the book seem dated Were you aware of the book being 40 years or more old or did it seem contemporary? Was there anything that surprised you? What did you think about the characters? Would you like to read something else by this author?

Don't forget to rate your partners!

Note: swap edited on 23 June because the BBC removed the page from their website and that link no longer works! The Literary Celebration link is still fine -- let's hope it survives until the end of the series of swaps!

Note -- late sending or failure to rate will mean that I will remove you from future Jubilee Read swaps.