2009 books
39) Jim Crace, Continent, 1986
In 1986 Continent won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, the Guardian Fiction Prize and the David Higham Prize for Fiction, quite a trio of honours for a debut British author. It's made up of seven short stories about a fictional seventh continent; while there are no geographical details given it does still feel like more than just an imaginary realm, and yet also reminds me in some respects of Chris Priest's The Dream Archipelago. Some stories focus on how Europe and America relate culturally to its rather backward population, and there's no doubt the best story among them is 'Sins and Virtues': it's by far the easiest to understand culturally and is also the best plotted. The rest of these stories are difficult to engage with for a variety of different reasons but are all self-evidently significant, and they demand close attention as there's not a wasted word anywhere. Cautiously recommended, but without reservation if you go in for Italo Calvino. I expect I'll be reading more.