These two books are both on the Man Booker Prize long list, both are hardbacks sold without dust jackets and both have beautiful covers with shiny designs which sparkle as they catch the light. For me, that's where the similarities ended!
One, the Long Song by Andrea Levy, the story of a slave called July, is a great read which trips along, despite the harrowing subject matter. I was totally immersed in the life on the Jamaican sugar plantation and wanted to follow July's story right to the end.
The other, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell, I abandoned after 150 pages, deciding life was too short to spend it reading this! All very clever, historically interesting, highly imaginative but, as I lacked the ability to picture the story in my imagination, it became a tedious slog. It will probably win!
The first book sounds more my cup of tea!
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