Books by Brandon Taylor
“It’s a campus novel, set in Iowa City. It’s about a group of (mostly) grad students—artists, dancers, poets, a lot of artsy people—going about their lives and their relationship entanglements, what they’re thinking about. There’s not much plot in the book. It’s Brandon Taylor’s third book, and it has some similar themes to his first two books. I thought the book was especially good in audio format because it’s a very meditative book. There are a lot of musings about life and relationships, about making art, about race and class and all these different things in America. It’s sort of meandering. Kevin R. Free is one of my favorite narrators. He’s incredibly good and he really made the book his own. He created voices for the 12 or so characters in the book. I just found it very easy and pleasurable to sink into that world and hang out with these people for a little while.” Read more...
Laura Sackton, Journalist
“Real Life is about the racism, homophobia and alienation faced by a young man from Alabama, going to a Midwestern university to do a biochemistry degree – the micro-aggressions he faces on a daily basis, and how he maintains his own identity. It’s deeply affecting and emotional, examining desire and pain and grief, memory and fantasy, things from the protagonist’s childhood, as well as the present – while asking the question: ‘What is real life, anyway?’” Read more...
The Best Fiction of 2020: The Booker Prize Shortlist
Margaret Busby, Publisher
Interviews where books by Brandon Taylor were recommended
The Best Campus Novels
Life in an academic institution can be a curiously intense experience. As a result, the hot-house atmosphere of a university campus or boarding school presents a fitting backdrop for novels exploring ambition, power dynamics, crushes, and sexual crises. Here, we’ve pulled together a list of campus novels that have been recommended on Five Books over the years, via our interviews with literary scholars, bestselling authors and book prize judges.
The Best Fiction of 2020: The Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Margaret Busby
Every year, the Booker Prize judges whittle a year’s worth of fiction down to a shortlist of six books, each competing for the title of the best novel of the year. Margaret Busby, chair of this year’s judging panel, discusses the six books that made the cut in 2020. See the Booker Prize shortlist 2024.
The Best Audiobooks of 2023, recommended by Laura Sackton
AudioFile magazine is one of the best places on the web for audiobook reviews. At the end of every year, its editors compile lists that highlight the best audiobooks across a range of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, biography and mystery. Laura Sackton, a contributor at AudioFile, talks us through some of her favourites from their best of 2023 lists—and explains how she got the bug for listening to books as well as reading them.
