The 1998 Booker Prize- A Deep Dive And Review

Hello everyone! It's Bob here, and I wanted to do a throwback and deep dive into the shortlist for the 1998 Booker Prize, and my personal choices for the winner!
This is all part of my (foolhardy) decision to read all of the novels shortlisted for The Booker Prize over its 50+ years. Please recommend what year you would like me to do next, and I hope you enjoy the video!
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Books Mentioned:
Ian McEwan- Amsterdam
Beryl Bainbridge- Master Georgie
Julian Barnes- England, England
Martin Booth- The Industry of Souls
Patrick McCabe- Breakfast on Pluto
Magnus Mills- The Restraint of Beasts

[@AJDunnReadsandWrites]

I loved Atonement. I'd be interested in reading more of Ian McEwan's work.

[@BobTheBookerer]

It’s great! I’m planning on re-reading it soon- it’s been a while! I find him a bit hit and miss, in the sense that there was a string of novels that were amazing, but I’ve struggled with his last 3 or 4. ‘On Chesil Beach’ is perhaps my absolute favourite of his, and ‘The Comfort of Strangers’ is wonderful and disturbing.

[@GuiltyFeat]

Amsterdam is definitely lesser McEwan, but I'm not a huge fan of On Chesil Beach either. I think Atonement is his masterwork but Enduring Love, Nutshell and Sweet Tooth are all better books than Amsterdam. His creepy, early work scares the bejabbers out of me.
Loving this project revisiting old shortlists. So many of the books shortlist do not hold up in 2021. I remember 1998 fairly well. I remember Amsterdam winning and I picked up a paperback copy at the airport in Manila. I've also read Master Georgie. I've read other work by Barnes and McCabe and I remember that it was still quite unusual for a first novel like Mills's to appear on the shortlist. I do not, though, have any memory at all of Martin Booth. I've never read him and I might have sworn that I'd never heard of him. Good stuff, thanks.

[@BobTheBookerer]

Yes, Atonement is so good! I’m going to re-read it soon, and I’m excited to see how well it holds up from what I remember of it. Yeah, a lot of his earlier stuff feels so different to what he’s written recently!
Thank you! Interesting that you say about first novels being a rarity on the list- it feels like this has been changing a bit with more recent shortlists (7 of the 13 books in the 2020 longlist). But I’m finding it interesting going back over the shortlists and seeing those moments where a book was seen as being very ‘of the moment’ but is rarely spoken about now.