It's Orange Prize time again!

Welcome (back) to the Warwickshire Orange Prize 2012 shadow blog! Once again, we'll be reading alongside the official Orange Prize judges, as soon as the shortlist is announced on 17th April. Along the way, we'll be discussing our reactions in this blog. We've got three meetings planned during the time (see sidebar to the left), and then we'll make our selection as to what we feel is the worthy winner of the £30,000 Orange Prize for Fiction. There's even an opportunity to travel together to London to hear readings from the Orange Prize shortlist. We all had a great time doing this last year, and this year we've got some cracking reads. If you want a headstart, check out the longlist. You may have already read some of them. 


The longlist was announced in March:

• Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg (Quercus) - Swedish; 1st Novel
• On the Floor by Aifric Campbell (Serpent's Tail) - Irish; 3rd Novel
• The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen (The Clerkenwell Press) - American; 4th Novel
• The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue (Picador) - Irish; 7th Novel
• Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Serpent's Tail) - Canadian; 2nd Novel
• The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) - Irish; 5th Novel
• The Flying Man by Roopa Farooki (Headline Review) - British; 5th Novel
• Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (Quercus) - American; 4th Novel
• Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding (Bloomsbury) - British; 3rd Novel
• Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (Faber & Faber) - British; 2nd Novel
• The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - British; 2nd Novel
• The Blue Book by A.L. Kennedy (Jonathan Cape) - British; 6th Novel
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Harvill Secker) - American; 1st Novel
• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury) - American; 1st Novel
• Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (Atlantic Books) - American; 7th Novel
• State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury) - American; 6th Novel
• There but for the by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton) - British; 5th Novel
• The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard (Alma Books) - British; 2nd Novel
• Tides of War by Stella Tillyard (Chatto & Windus) - British; 1st Novel
• The Submission by Amy Waldman (William Heinemann) - American; 1st Novel

For a synopsis of each of the above with author biographies, check out the Orange Prize website. You can also click the tab above to be taken to 'The Guardian 2012 Orange Prize Longlist in Pictures'. (So you can see the covers. Plus a slideshow is just kind of fun).

So, have you read any of them already? I have to admit, I've not read a single one! Well, I did have a go at the The Night Circus, but I didn't finish it. You may recall (and if we've just met, you'll soon learn) that I am not one to carry on with a book when it's not working for me. I cast them aside with no regrets! But that's just me, and in this group, I am probably the most capricious and hasty about these things. :) 

Hope to hear from you--don't be shy!