Call me self-centered. Call me whatever. The universe seems, quite clearly, to be lambasting me for not yet reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun. Fresh off her Orange prize win, her book has just been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial prize.
She does, however, have some stiff competition:
- The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
- The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Seven Lies by James Lasdun
- Electricity by Ray Robinson
I'm going to start my own brand of book prize in which the criteria will include the amount of time a book has remained untouched on my desk, the intense desire I have to read said book yet have not yet gotten to it despite intense internal and external pressure, and the amount of actual book prizes the unread book has received whilst still sitting, dusty, on my desk. If such a prize were given out, here is what my shortlist might look like:
- Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
- War Trash by Ha Jin
What would yours look like?