Six Blake Friedmann titles have been included in The New York Times ‘Best Books since 2000’ list.
A compilation of their annual ‘Best Books’ lists from every year since 2000, the ‘Best Books since 2000’ list comprises of 3,228 titles and celebrates the best books (according to the New York Times) regardless of genre, form or subject matter. It is noteworthy how many titles highlighted in these annual lists have gone on to be international bestsellers and / or achieve classic status.
We are delighted that the following Blake Friedmann authors and titles have made the selection.
Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Booker-longlisted novel CASE STUDY made the 2022 list and WINTERTON BLUE by Trezza Azzopardi was included in 2007. Zakes Mda has two titles on the list – his memoir SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID (2012) and THE HEART OF REDNESS (2002) – while VINDICATION: A LIFE OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT by Lyndall Gordon appeared in the 2005 list and the million-copy bestseller STAR OF THE SEA by Joseph O’Connor was highlighted for 2003.
WINTERTON BLUE by Booker-shortlisted author Trezza Azzopardi was first published in 2007 by Picador in the UK and by Grove Atlantic in the US. It was longlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award and is at once a powerful love story and an intricately plotted mystery that explores the staying power of family and memory, and the pull of unlikely but destined romance. ‘Azzopardi uses her visual imagination to conjure scenes of humor as well as heartbreak.’
CASE STUDY by Graeme Macrae Burnet was published in 2021 by Saraband Books in the UK, and listed for prizes including the 2023 Dublin Literary Award and the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize. To date, rights have been sold in 18 countries, with Text publishing in Australia and Biblioasis in North America. Through a series of notebooks, the novel follows the story of a young woman who, convinced that the psychotherapist Arthur Collins Braithwaite is responsible for her sister’s suicide, assumes a fake identity and presents herself to him as a patient so she can find out the truth about her sister. Saraband, Biblioasis and Text are set to publish Graeme’s next novel, A CASE OF MATRICIDE, in October 2024, concluding his popular Inspector Gorski trilogy.
Lyndall Gordon’s VINDICATION: A LIFE OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT explores the life of a woman often criticised by biographers, historians and feminists alike. Gordon challenges such opinions, and portrays instead the genius of this extraordinary woman. A New York Times bestseller, VINDICATION: A LIFE OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT is published by Virago in the UK and by HarperCollins in the US, and made the longlist for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.
Zakes Mda’s SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID and THE HEART OF REDNESS were published by Farrar Straus and Giroux in the US. The latter is often cited as one of South Africa’s Top Ten classics and is a novel of great scope and deep human feeling, of passion and reconciliation, bringing together the story of South African village life with a notorious episode from the country's past. Zakes Mda’s acclaimed memoir SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID is often disarmingly candid. It weaves together past and present to give an intensely personal story of his development in life, love, learning and literature, and the events and people who shaped him.
Joseph O’Connor’s international bestseller STAR OF THE SEA is set on a ship fleeing the aftermath of the Irish Famine. It was published by Harvill Secker in the UK and by Harcourt Brace in the US, and has been translated into 38 languages. It won France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, the Irish Post Award for Fiction, the Nielsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, an American Library Association Award, the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Hall of Fame Award, and the Prix Litteraire Zepter for European Novel of the Year. Joseph is currently working on his next novel, THE GHOSTS OF ROME, the sequel to MY FATHER’S HOUSE, due to be published by Harvill Secker in the UK and Europa in the US in early 2025.
Photo credit: Rosie Johnson
About Trezza Azzopardi
Trezza Azzopardi was born and grew up in Cardiff. She has an MA in Film Studies from The University of Derby, and in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she now teaches.
Trezza has written four novels: her first, THE HIDING PLACE, won the 2001 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; REMEMBER ME (2004) and WINTERTON BLUE (2007), were both listed for the Wales Book of the Year. Her latest novel, THE SONG HOUSE, was serialised on BBC Radio 4. Her novella THE TIP OF MY TONGUE, based on one of the tales from The Mabinogion, was published in October 2013.
She also writes short stories, which have been widely anthologized, essays, and occasional pieces for radio. Her work has been translated into twenty languages.
Praise for WINTERTON BLUE
‘This is an astute book by a precise writer who knows how to entertain while grappling with love and loss.’ – The Sunday Times
‘Beguiling… a novel marked by poetic delicacy.’ – The Times Literary Supplement
Follow Trezza on X (previously Twitter).
Photo credit: Euan Anderson
About Graeme Macrae Burnet
Graeme Macrae Burnet was brought up in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire and now lives in Glasgow. He has also lived in the Czech Republic, France, Portugal and London and has appeared at festivals and events all over the world. His first novel, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADÈLE BEDEAU (Saraband, 2014), received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust and was longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. HIS BLOODY PROJECT (Saraband, 2015) won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the LA Times Book Awards. A second Inspector Gorski novel, THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35, was published in 2017 and the third in the series, A CASE OF MATRICIDE is due to be published later this year.
Praise for CASE STUDY
‘Burnet’s triumph is that it’s a page-turning blast, funny, sinister and perfectly plotted so as to reveal – or withhold – its secrets in a consistently satisfying way. It also does a fine job of keeping our sympathies shifting, and of conjuring up a lost cultural era. Rarely has being constantly wrong-footed been so much fun.’ – James Walton, The Times
‘A novel of mind-bending brilliance. Graeme Macrae Burnet is a master of muddying the waters, of troubling ideas of truth and identity, fiction and documentary, and CASE STUDY shows him at the height of his powers.’ – Hannah Kent
Visit Graeme’s website.
Follow Graeme on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram.
Photo credit: Nina Hollington
About Lyndall Gordon
A much-celebrated biographer, Lyndall Gordon lives in Oxford. Her ability to make the subjects of her biographies come vividly to life has won her many literary awards, including the Cheltenham Prize and the James Tait Black prize. She has also been longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Comisso Prize.
Praise for VINDICATION: A LIFE OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
‘A riveting page-turner… The reader is drawn directly into Mary Wollstonecraft’s struggle… From this beautifully written book, Wollstonecraft emerges as a triumphant success, despite all adversity and slights of fate… Lyndall Gordon’s biographical method is exciting.’ – Ruth Scurr, The Times
‘Wonderful and deeply sobering… Lyndall Gordon relates Wollstonecraft’s story with the same potent mixture of passion and reason her subject personified.’ – New York Times Book Review
Visit Lyndall’s website.
Photo credit: Sal Idriss
About Zakes Mda
Zakes Mda is an acclaimed novelist, playwright and painter. He divides his time between South Africa and his work as Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University. He has been the recipient of major awards including the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and South African Silver Order of Ikhamanga for Excellence in Arts and Culture.
Praise for SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID and THE HEART OF REDNESS
‘Brilliant... A new kind of novel: one that combines Gabriel García Márquez's magic realism and political astuteness with satire, social realism and a critical re-examination of the South African past.’ – The New York Times Book Review
‘Mda’s electric honesty is a live current through his remarkably gorgeous, urgent, poetic, matter-of-fact memoir. But don’t get lulled into thinking this is just the book of one bravely truthful man’s journey into self-expression. Mda has shaken off calcification, identity, ego and walked us all into sovereignty and selfhood. Read this, and be prepared to examine your own soul as never before.’ – Alexandra Fuller, The Guardian
Follow Zakes on X (previously Twitter)
Photo credit: Urszula Soltys
About Joseph O’Connor
Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. His books include the novels COWBOYS AND INDIANS, DESPERADOES, THE SALESMAN, SHADOWPLAY and most recently, MY FATHER’S HOUSE. He has also published biography, short stories and has written several successful plays. He is the inaugural Frank McCourt Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.
Praise for STAR OF THE SEA
‘Spectacular… A vibrant, picaresque novel that tackles a vast, perilous subject with such aplomb that it raises the bar not just for O’Connor but for contemporary Irish fiction in general. The book is a triumph.’ – The Sunday Times
‘This is O’Connor’s best book. It is shocking, hilarious, beautifully written, and very, very clever.’ – Roddy Doyle
Visit Joseph’s website.