Sunday Salon: Orange Prize picks, prediction and thoughts

The much-anticipated announcement of the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction winner will be on Wednesday. As you likely read earlier this week, this year will be the last the Prize is sponsored by Orange. Many in the U.S. were surprised to hear that Orange is even a company. Linda Grant, who won the second Orange Prize for When I Lived in Modern Times (my review), wrote a beautiful response in The Guardian this week. Although Orange has sponsored the Prize since its inception in 1996, a private benefactor donates the prize money. It's a relief to know "if a new sponsor can be found, all that will change is the name – and what matters is not what the prize is called, but what it represents." Readers of this blog know I'm a both a fan and advocate for the Orange Prize. My initial sadness at the news of Orange's withdrawal has been tempered by the support. While the Prize will likely soon have a new name, it will live on. I do, however, hope the shortlisted authors can enjoy this week of festivities.

My vote and my prediction
This year's shortlist is quite strong, and for the first time in my obsessive reading of prize lists, I can say I will cheer and celebrate any winner this year. Will I cheer more loudly for some winners than others? Yes, but all the titles are deserving of the Prize, even though I happened to prefer two titles more.  Honestly, I won't be surprised with any name called Wednesday evening in London; a case can be made for any of these books to win. Several members of the Orange January/July group on Library Thing who have read the entire shortlist are participating in a shadow jury. It's been fascinating to see how different our reactions are to some titles. Here's how I ranked the six titles for the shadow jury (title links go to my reviews):

1. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (6 stars)
2. Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding (4.5 stars)
3. Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (4 stars)
4. The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright (4 stars)
5. Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (4 stars)
6. Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (4 stars)

If I were on the Orange Prize jury, I would do all I could to convince my peers to pick State of Wonder and make Ann Patchett the first author to win this Prize twice. It was my favorite novel of 2011, and I haven't stopped singing its praises since I read it last summer. If I were a betting woman, however, I'd pick Georgina Harding to win for Painter of Silence. It's a lovely novel, and it appears to have more of a consensus behind it than the other novels.

Enjoying staycation
I'm using my last four days of vacation this week, as I have to use it all by the end of May. It's wonderful to have seven days off of work, and I'm hoping to finish reading the last four titles on the Orange Prize longlist before I go back to work Friday. This afternoon, I'm staying indoors to avoid the oppressive heat and reading On the Floor by Aifric Campbell. What are you reading this weekend?