Wellcome Book Prize 2019: Shadow Panel Shortlist

Since the longlist for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize was announced, our shadow panel chaired by Rebecca has been reading as many of the books as we could get our hands on. Now we’ve come up with our own shortlist. Drumroll please… In alphabetical order they are:

  • Amateur: A true story about what makes a man by Thomas Page McBee
  • Educated by Tara Westover
  • Heart: A history by Sandeep Jauhar
  • Murmur by Will Eaves
  • Sight by Jessie Greengrass
  • The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
  • This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein

The panel of Rebecca, Clare, Laura, Paul and myself voted based upon those we’ve read and those we still want to read based on each others’ reviews. Edelstein came out top, and Heart and Murmur were tied at the bottom of our shortlist.

Rebecca has posted HERE with full links to all our reviews, so I won’t post them all here.

My personal tip for the top was Murmur by Will Eaves, (reviewed here), an experimental novel based on the last years of Alan Turing.

The official shortlist will be announced on Tuesday the 19th. As always, it’ll be fascinating to see how well we match – or don’t!


The official Wellcome Book Prize shortlist will be announced on Tuesday the 19th.

7 thoughts on “Wellcome Book Prize 2019: Shadow Panel Shortlist

  1. Laura says:

    I feel like there was such an obvious cluster of stronger entries that the shortlists should match closely, which means I should probably prepare myself for an Astroturf/Mind on Fire/ Polio/My Year of Rest and Relaxtion/Freshwater/Heart shortlist… 🙂

    • AnnaBookBel says:

      I hope you’re right Laura. Ha ha! I’ve reserved Amateur and the Edelstein at the library now, fingers crossed they come in soon.

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