Month: October 2026
One year and one month on
It’s been a year and a month since My Name is Jodie Jones was published, and the very lovely news is that it is continuing to be the bearer of good news.
Booksellers, librarians, critics and bloggers have written review after astonishing review, making my heart swell and my dopamine levels skyrocket; readers have loved it (mostly – I mean, no book is for everyone), and the award nominations, to my joy and astonishment, keep on coming.
The most recent is a long listing for the UKLA (UK Literacy Association) Book Awards in the 11-14+ category. The award, which is voted for by teachers, this year teachers in Manchester, is awarded ‘for books in which the language is powerful,’ has ‘an effect on the child reader’ and is ‘memorable in some way because of the way it is used.’ The winning book also needs to ‘have something interesting to say’, ‘communicate its themes in interesting ways’, be ‘well-crafted not only at plot level but also with regard to narration, style, dialogue, lexical choices and recognise a broad range of perspectives, experiences and voices.’ This is all very Jodie Jones, but there are excellent books in the long listing that fit that description, too, so good luck to all of my esteemed author buddies and colleagues. We are honoured to have been long listed. Thank you very much, UKLA, for this nomination.
I had a conversation with a 62 year old on Monday, who said that realistically, depending on how long they lived, they figured they’d only read around 200 more books in their lifetime. It’s a sobering thought to consider in the ocean of books that have ever been published and are being published with abundance each year, that we might have to get even choosier, to be incredibly discerning, even, because our reading life has a span all its own. That’s without nonfiction reading, and I’ve been reading lost of psychology books lately, too. But in terms of novels, I tried to read, again, William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow last night and, again, stopped after about ten pages. This comes after a long list of attempted and abandoned books this year: I couldn’t get to the end of Flashlight, Anxious People, The Silence of the Girls (revisiting that) and a host of others. I’ve read corkers I’ve loved (Wild Dark Shore (but not the ending); The Wedding People; Lolita (deeply uncomfortable but brilliant), Pride and Prejudice (again, and still finding things I missed the last few times), Priestdaddy and others. Maybe I’m being impatient, maybe discerning. I need novels that draw me in, delight and amuse me, take me into a mind and a world through wonderful phrasing and language. If anyone has any recs, I’d be very happy to give them a ten page try.
