CC: Women's Prize for Fiction 2025

Well, I promised us that I would set up some Women's Fiction Prize swaps like the Non-fiction ones I've been running -- and then they announced the longlist.

It might just be me, but I don't generally choose books that are harrowing, depressing or gritty. And quite a few of the books on the list seemed to me to fall into that category. I'm sure they are all beautifully written and worth reading -- they're just not for me.

There were only a few that I plan to read this year -- the others just feel too heavy.

So instead of running a series of swaps, I thought we could have just a single fiction swap, with the entire list of books to choose from.

The books on the longlist are:

Good Girl by Aria Aber

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches

Amma by Saraid de Silva

Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings

All Fours by Miranda July

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell

A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike

Birding by Rose Ruane

The Artist by Lucy Steeds

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis

There's lots of information about each of the books and their authors at The Women's Prize for Fiction

For this swap, choose and read (or listen to your book), and then email your partners with your comments and responses.

It's up to you what you say, but you might want to think about questions like why did you choose this book? Was there anything that surprised you? Was it an author whose work you already knew or was the author new to you? What did you think about the style? How accessible did you find the book? Did you feel engaged by the characters? Did you enjoy the book? Why or why not? Would you like to read something else by this author? Would you recommend it as a good read? Give your partners a short summary of the book as well (without spoilers!) so they can decide if it's one they might want to read.

You need to write a paragraph or more, not just a couple of sentences.

Don't forget to rate your partners!

If you listen to an audiobook rather than reading the print book, you might want to comment on the narrator or reader as well.

I'll give us a good length of time so that we all have time to choose a book and get hold of a copy, and then to read it. Some of us will be doing the nonfiction challenge as well so I'm allowing us hopefully enough time to do both.

Obviously you can start reading now, before partners are assigned.

Have fun!