The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015 Shortlist Revealed

I recently wrote a blog about the Man Booker Prize Longlist. On Tuesday, September 15, the shortlisted authors were announced. The judges remarked on the variety of writing styles, cultural heritage and literary backgrounds of the writers on the shortlist, which includes new authors alongside established names. Two authors come from the United Kingdom, two from the United States and one apiece from Jamaica and Nigeria.
The six novels are:
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Jamaica)
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy (UK)
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria)
The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota (UK)
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (US)
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (US)

My interest really lies with the two US novels and I'd like to share a little bit about each of them.

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
About the book: A saga that unfolds through three generations of middle-class Baltimore family, the Whitshanks.
About the author: This is Tyler's 20th novel. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941, her first book, If Morning Ever Comes, was published in 1964. She won the Pulitzer prize for Breathing Lessons (1988). Her novel The Accidental Tourist (1985) was adapted into a film. A Spool of Blue Thread was also nominated for this year's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
The judges said: "She demonstrates once again her supreme powers of observation, and the stylistic brilliance that have marked her work through 50 extraordinary years."
The reviews said: "Tyler never mocks her characters. Even when she's having fun with their weird peculiarities and transparent short-sightedness, she's usually a benevolent goddess. And yet it's her surprising brutality that kills off any germs of sentimentality in her work" Washington Post

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
About the book: The story of four college friends who have moved to New York seeking fame and fortune. At the center of the tale is the enigmatic Jude, an orphan with a painful past.
About the author: Born in Los Angeles in 1975, Yanagihara is the author of The People in the Trees, which was shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction. She is an editor-at-large at Conde Nast Traveller and lives in New York.
The judges said: "A Little Life is a work of lasting emotional impact, often larger than life itself, as (Yanagihara) delicately balances the horrors of a traumatic childhood with the story of selfless enduring tenderness and devotion."
The reviews said: "Somehow, against all the odds, just like its protagonist, this book survives everything its author throws at it and if it doesn't quite triumph, it has far outplayed the odds."
The Guardian