Six Blake Friedmann titles make the illustrious New York Times ‘Best Books since 2000’ list

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.

Booker-Shortlisted Graeme Macrae Burnet to investigate A CASE OF MATRICIDE with Saraband

Credit: Euan Anderson

A CASE OF MATRICIDE – Graeme Macrae Burnet’s moving, witty and startling conclusion to the Chief Inspector Gorski trilogy – will be published by Saraband on 3 October 2024. Twice nominated for the Booker Prize for his previous standalone novels HIS BLOODY PROJECT and CASE STUDY, in A CASE OF MATRICIDE Graeme Macrae Burnet pierces the respectable bourgeois façade of small-town life, injecting a wry humour into the tiniest of details and delves into the darkest recesses of his characters’ minds, while above all provides an entertaining, page-turning and entirely satisfying read. UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canadian) rights were acquired from Isobel Dixon by Saraband’s publisher, Sara Hunt.

‘It’s a moment of huge satisfaction to bring the Georges Gorski trilogy to a conclusion with A CASE OF MATRICIDE,’ said Graeme. ‘I hope readers will enjoy this final sojourn in the streets and bars of Saint-Louis as much as I have. I’m also delighted to be working once again with Saraband Books who have seen this ten-year project through from its inception with exceptional care and sensitivity. Au revoir, Saint-Louis.’

Publisher at Saraband, Sara Hunt says, ‘I was confident I’d enjoy reading Graeme’s latest manuscript, but nothing prepared me for the range and depth of emotion it evoked. A CASE OF MATRICIDE is insightful, clever, brilliantly original and funny, succeeding in simultaneously providing a fantastic standalone read and an ingenious tying up of the Gorski trilogy. But it’s also profound and in places desperately sad. It deserves its place alongside the classics of existentialist literature.’

‘I read THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADÈLE BEDEAU and THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35 in quick succession and with relish some years ago, and ever since I’ve been eager to see what Inspector Gorski does next,’ added Isobel Dixon. ‘With A CASE OF MATRICIDE I found myself, gripped, surprised and moved. I’ve been a bit haunted since I reached the last page, and am so glad readers around the world will be able to appreciate Graeme’s artistry and the allure of the complete trilogy soon – but new readers can also dive straight in.’

In the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Between visits to the town’s hostelries, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski ponders the connections, if any, between these events, while all the time grappling with his own domestic and existential demons.

About Graeme Macrae Burnet

Graeme Macrae Burnet was born in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire and now lives in Glasgow. He has also lived in the Czech Republic, France, Portugal and London.

His first novel, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADÈLE BEDEAU (Contraband, 2014), received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust and was longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. A second Inspector Gorski novel, THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35, was published in 2017.

HIS BLOODY PROJECT (Contraband, 2015) won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and the Vrij Nederland Thriller of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the LA Times Mystery Book of the Year and the European Crime Fiction prize. It has been published in over twenty languages. His latest novel CASE STUDY was published in October 2021 by Saraband (UK), Text (ANZ) and Bolinda (UK audio) to wide critical acclaim. The North American edition was published in November 2022 by Biblioasis. It has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 and the Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Ned Kelly International Crime Prize. It is due to be published in fifteen languages.

Graeme was named Author of the Year in the 2017 Sunday Herald Culture Awards and has appeared at festivals and events in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Russia, Estonia, Macau, Lithuania, Ireland, Germany and France, as well as in the UK.

Praise for the Inspector Gorski series

‘Games within games – and names within names... with characteristic trickiness, Macrae Burnet has constructed a fake mystery novel that may reveal the truth about a fictional novelist. He is extravagantly talented.’ — Mark Lawson, The Guardian

‘The whole is both a classy detective story and a stylish meditation on agency and existence. If Roland Barthes… had written a detective novel, then this would be it.’ — Literary Review

‘Gripping and intelligent.’ — Phillip Pullman, The Observer

‘Unusual, distinctive and delightful.’ – Alan Massie, The Scotsman

Praise for Graeme Macrae Burnet

‘The defining essence of Burnet’s work to date is to be found in this kind of literary gamesmanship, a brand of metatextuality that is as much about exploiting the possibilities of the novel form as it is about blurring the boundaries between appearance and reality. In throwing us into doubt about which – and more crucially whose – story we are supposed to be following, Burnet encourages us to look more closely at the inherent instability of fiction itself. The painstakingly assembled, predominantly mimetic fiction of the 19th century has trained us to trust the author; Burnet has always delighted in undermining such easy assumptions’ – Nina Allan, Guardian

 ‘A writer of great skill and authority.’ – Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

‘Darkly engaging.’ – Sally Magnusson, The Herald

‘Utterly enthralling.’ – Angie Harms, Sunday Mail

‘A writer to watch.’ – Malcolm Forbes, Literary Review

‘An ambitious and accomplished writer.’ – Richard Strachan, The National

‘A strikingly singular talent.’ – Will Mackie, Booktrust