Books so far:

Starred titles are those I’m most interested in reading.

Orange Prize for Fiction 2009 (official website)

Jill from The Magic Lasso is prompting others to read as many books in July as we can that have been longlisted, shortlisted, or won by the Orange Prize. I hope to read at least the first two titles on the list. I’m also interested in reading the other titles in the next year [...]]]>

Jill from The Magic Lasso is prompting others to read as many books in July as we can that have been longlisted, shortlisted, or won by the Orange Prize. I hope to read at least the first two titles on the list. I’m also interested in reading the other titles in the next year or so. A group of us are reading Oranges at the Orange Prize Project as well. Check it out!

• What Was Lost
• The Poisonwood Bible
• The Tenderness of Wolves, by Stef Penney
• Unless, by Carol Shields
• Larry’s Party, by Carol Shields
• Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood
• The Dream Life of Sukhanov
• The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
• Fall On Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald
• The Zigzag Way by Anita Desai
• Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
• The Lizard Cage, by Karen Connelly

They sat on wooden planks and the weak morning sun streamed into the roofless class as she unfurled Odenigbo’s cloth flag and told them what the symbols meant. Red was the blood [...]]]> A beautifully told story of a savage civil war, Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun definitely deserved the 2007 Orange Prize.

They sat on wooden planks and the weak morning sun streamed into the roofless class as she unfurled Odenigbo’s cloth flag and told them what the symbols meant. Red was the blood of the siblings massacred in the North, black was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have, and finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious future.

I resisted reading this book because I really just don’t like war stories at all. I wanted to give it a chance, though, because so many bloggers had said they appreciated it. They were right; it’s a very special book. Based on the conflict in Nigeria in the late 1960′s, it not only depicts the horrors of war, it also hauntingly and lovingly depicts the lives of the participants. Apparently many of the characters were based on real people in Adichie’s family history, and this authenticity very much shines through.There were some content issues for me in the book, but I’m very glad I read this story. I look forward to reading Purple Hibiscus and other books of hers to come. If you decide to read the book (and I highly encourage it), afterwards you might want to go to her website http://www.halfofayellowsun.com where you can find a lot more information about the true story.

2006, 541 pp.
2007 Orange Prize
Rating: 4.5