1. Name the authors of the last three fictional books you read.
2. Who were the protagonists? Male or female?
3. When browsing for books, what guides you? The title, the author's name, or the cover? Is it the same with non-fiction?
4. Do you follow literary awards? Do their decisions influence your book buying?
5. Before reading the infographic, are the following statements true or false?
a) Female writers are more comprehensive in their ability to describe life.
b) Male writers only write about experiences that they can identify with.
c) The panels who decide on prizewinners are male dominated/biased towards a mostly male publishing industry.
d) It's easier to please male book buyers.
Read the infographic halfway down the page here: Anatomy Of A Prize Winner Reading
6. Have you read any of the books/authors from the infographic?
7. Do you think book buyers care about the gender of the author? Do women write books for women, but men write books for everybody?
8. What good reasons can you think of for not finishing a book?
9. Are there any books that you regret not finishing, or not starting?
10. Which authors from your country are most present in prize-giving lists? Is there a male/female divide?
11. If I wanted to appear well-read, which books from your language should I have read, or claim to have read?
..........
Situation
You are the literary correspondent at the BBC. You are doing a radio interview with a host (your teacher) who is asking you about the best books of 2022. Give your recommendations for the best reads of the year (You can use any book that you have read in the past - we'll assume that it was published in 2022).
..........
Discuss quotes
1. ‘Classic – a book which people praise and don’t read.’
- Mark Twain
2. “The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.”
― Michael Moorcock
3. ‘If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.’
--- Oscar Wilde
4. ‘There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.’
--- Joseph Brodsky
5. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.”
--- George R.R. Martin
Student Handout PDF: Anatomy
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