Marlon James's The Disappearers.

So this book is the chunkster on the shortlist.

It's over 600 pages and it is an epic.

It is set in Jamaica, well starts in Jamaica in the 1980s when a group of gay men are wanting to put on a play and then a really horrific thing happens at one of their rehearsals and you follow on from there over several decades and it's it's heavy literally because it's huge but also it's quite intense but there's also some real joy in there quite a lot of hope and his writing is just stunning but i would say if you're going to read it which i would recommend everyone should maybe take it in parts and have a break with something else in between each part

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout.

Now, she's one of my favourite authors, and I think this is a very different book for her.

It's kind of got this silent rage that propels it forward.

It's set in the not-too-recent past in America, where a big political moment is brewing.