Also announced today (or yesterday) were the nominees for The Believer Magazine Book and Poetry awards.  I’ll be focussing on the five novel nominees:

Like the Goldsmith Prize, the Believer Book Awards generally nominates novels and collections that are outside the mainstream, that most people will not be aware of.  If you were being cynical you could say they’re the sort of books that a hipster might recommend at a party just to show how in touch they were with their literary soul.  As it happens I’m only aware of the McCracken which was longlisted for the National Book Award.

I expect the novels above to be challenging and fascinating and very short.  I think the longest is the Cook at about 270 pages.

Also worth noting is that two translations have been nominated (always a good thing) and that a woman has either authored or translated every nominee.