Today in Bookish and Literary History, October 24

1659 Crusoe ends salvaging items from the wreck

2023 Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson

New to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he's landed in a creaking, stuffy apartment with two roommates: a loping giant who hardly leaves his room, and a weight-obsessed neurotic who keeps no fewer than forty-seven lamps throughout the house, blazing at all hours.

  • A finalist for the 2023 Young Lions Fiction Award
  • Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize

2024 The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (UK)

A masterful, page-turning examination of the minutiae of life, The Land in Winter is a masterclass in storytelling - proof yet again that Andrew Miller is one of Britain's most dazzling chroniclers of the human heart.

  • Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
  • Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025

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