2023 has seen another successful Marlborough LitFest Love Books competition, with a record 160 entries in its fourth year. One of LitFest’s aims is to celebrate the power of reading to shift perceptions and to open up opportunities. The annual LitFest Love Books competition invites participants to explain their choice of a favourite book, poem or play in a written response of up to 750 words. The emphasis needs to be on what entrants love about their chosen read and why they think others should try it. 

Genevieve Clarke, Marlborough LitFest Chair, said: “We were delighted to have a healthy crop of 70 entries for our youngest category and a record 63 entries for the adult category. Once again there was a wide range of reading choices in this year’s entries from young adult titles popular on BookTok to well-loved classics and, of course, Harry Potter. At a time when enjoyment and frequency of reading among children and young people in particular has declined it’s encouraging to see this enthusiasm for reading for pleasure.”

Open to three age groups – 13-15 years, 16-19 years and 20 years and above – the winner in each age category receives £300; runners-up will each win £100. LitFest is again very grateful to our judges: Judy Carver (daughter of William Golding), writer and CEO of William Golding Ltd, Jan Williamson (ex-Chair of Marlborough LitFest) and Nicola Presley, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Bath Spa University and also thanks to the anonymous donors who support our prizes.

13-15s WINNER

Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
By Guinevere Wise

In a world full of unrelenting earnestness, thank God for Bridget Jones! She is the reliably entertaining friend who enlivens any evening, who says what she thinks, whatever the consequences, and is able to shake off any embarrassing episode as just another amusing night out.

Bridget, as realised by Helen Fielding, is the ultimate Guilty Feminist: she wants to be a career woman and have an independent life, but she just cannot stop worrying about how much she weighs and whether the handsome man at the party has noticed her. The diary format provides instant access to her inner life, with all the contradictions common to a thirtysomething woman: she has needs but does not want to seem needy, she has fun but wants to be taken seriously, she wants to say what she thinks but does not want to give herself away. She has a distinctive way of expressing herself (whenever she has a day where she drinks less than five units of alcohol, she writes “vg” and her nicknames are memorable: Vile Richard, Pretentious Jerome).

The key to how much I enjoyed this novel is that Bridget says and does what all of us sometimes feel like saying and doing, but do not dare. She buys some cut-price chocolate decorations after Christmas and eats them just for the sake of it. She has a lunchtime Bloody Mary with her friend Tom even though she is trying to stop drinking. It is consistently funny, as we see her in all her many contradictions: she is really excited to be given a try-out on camera, and the next day she has “never been so humiliated in my life”. She calls Valentine’s Day a “purely commercial, cynical enterprise” and the next morning she is excitedly waiting for the post to arrive.

But it is sad as well: when she take a pregnancy test, she is both excited and petrified. She always has fear of missing out (“The more the sun shines the more obvious it seems that others are making fuller, better use of it”) and one senses that she does not quite know what will, in the end, truly make her happy. At one point, she writes, “Oh God, am so unhappy about Daniel. I love him” which seems to sum her up. She tries to fulfil society’s expectations by excelling as a cook, being as thin as possible and providing her parents with a suitable son-in-law. But reality keeps getting in the way: she tries to be sophisticated and aloof when meeting men, but instead she finds herself “giving an involuntary raucous laugh”. But is her very failure to meet her own expectations which makes her so loveable: she is flawed, like all of us, but she is gloriously flawed.

When the novel was published in 1996, Bridget Jones was a refreshing response to stories which were mostly written about men and for a male audience. This is a very readable insight into the social and office politics of a different era where male bosses felt less constrained in their actions. It was an early portrayal of a growing trend of youngish women who had been raised to believe that they did could have a family and career, and who were getting used to the fact that this empowerment, while giving them more options in life, necessarily meant they had more difficult choices to navigate. This set of choices remain true for us now, and so while our technology may be a little more advanced, and I understand there is less lunchtime drinking in publishing than in the 1990s, but in most respects, this is a hilarious and sympathetic story which remains highly relevant today.

13-15s RUNNER-UP

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
By Theodora Bradley

I never cry over books. No matter how sad or moving or beautiful, I’ve simply never cried.

But that all changed when a book thief stood in a river and whispered lost words to the boy with lemon hair. When planes came in the dead of night and killed the accordionist with silver eyes or when the man with feathered hair disappeared into the dead of night.

I am skipping ahead.

The first time Death meets the Book Thief is to take her brother.

The year is 1939 and a snow swept girl is on a train to her new foster parents in Nazi Germany. Her brother is gone, her mother is leaving, and all she has left is a stolen book on graves. Her new home is on Himmel street with Hans and Rosa Hubermann, a man with eyes of silver and kindness and a gruff but kind-hearted woman.

It is there she meets a boy with lemon-coloured hair – her best friend Rudy Steiner. The residents of Himmel street are ordinary, poor Germans barely scraping by with the lack of money and food during wartime.

However, Leisel’s quiet life completely changes when a Jew with hair like twigs arrives on their doorstep and moves into their basement. As Leisel navigates the words of Nazi Germany and the stories Max Vandeburg builds for her, she must separate her two lives to try and survive.

“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day. That was the business of hiding a Jew.”

The simple fact is that this book is soul crushing. Despite being narrated by Death, it is not morbid or depressing but manages to perfectly capture the essence of a very real childhood as Leisel grows and matures in wartime. Death narrates in a lightly ironic tone whilst he reflects upon these lives, foreshadowing the future with a casual cruelness that made my heart ache even at the beginning of the book.

“He does something to me that boy. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.”

The book is beautifully surreal and evokes sympathy even from an uncommon viewpoint. Zusak manages to give a fresh approach to a well-told story and give a new approach to the situation. Yes, these people are Germans, and many are part of the Nazi party, but after having insight into their lives are they still unforgivable? Whilst some believe Jews are worthless, others risk their lives to hide and help them, some idolise Hitler whilst others stand up against the regime. Despite the circumstances Zusak creates such compelling characters that it forces the reader to question their moral ambiguity and how they themselves would act in the face of such a totalitarian society.

A small but noteworthy note: “I’ve seen so many young men over the years who think their running at other young men. They are not. They’re running at me.”

I cannot talk more about the story without discussing what makes this book truly special, the writing. Even from the first page the Zusak shows himself to be a poet, an artist of words painting profound, vivid landscapes in a way I had never before encountered. Using a seemingly strange mix of adjectives and adverbs to weld words together created such strong emotions and scenery that flowed off the page and straight into my heart. There are many more things to be celebrated; the title pages, the ingenious merging of first and third character narrators, the elaborate pronouncements, all of which render Zusak a literary marvel. This is a book about the power of words and so I find it very fitting that it is written in such a beautiful and impactful way.

“I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”

I cannot say more about this book without completely spoiling the plot but believe me when I say that it is one the best things I have ever read. The writing is masterful, the plot is unique and the characters so rich and flavourful you feel that you have spent those years growing alongside them. All of this leads to a devastatingly glorious denouement that rips your heart out and bruises your ribs.

And made me cry.

16-19s WINNER

Love Marriage – Monica Ali
By Hannah Corcoran

In need of downtime from A-Level revision, I searched for some chick lit at Trowbridge’s WHSmith – sorry Cathy, not all of us yearn for Wuthering Heights. I wanted to read something that would keep my shortened attention span (thanks to Instagram reels) occupied. I found a vibrant paperback with its first five pages crammed with raving reviews. Love Marriage wasn’t the escapist read I hoped for but an immersive experience (perhaps minus the enticing smell of Anisah’s homecooked cauliflower pakoras). Finally, a warning for owners of a Fiat Multipla, your “bug eyed, bulge-headed Elephant Man of motoring” is defamed.

According to the Financial Times – bless, they probably need a break from reminding their subscribers to pay them £55 per month – Monica Ali forms characters who are “not just likeable, but loveable”. The novel explores the relationships of 26-year-old junior doctor, Yasmin Ghorami, with her family, friends, colleagues, and fiancé – fellow junior doctor – Joe Sangster. The novel begins with Yasmin’s anxiety surrounding her traditional Bengali parents meeting Joe’s mother – liberal, white, upper-middle class, feminist lecturer, and former model, Harriet Sangster – who Yasmin fears will violate the stability of her conservative family. Her mounting stress regarding the union of the two families is palpable as her parents – who tell Yasmin that their partnership was a “love marriage” across the Indian caste divide – appear emotionally distant. Her mother, Anisah, is eccentrically dressed and a devout Muslim, while her father, Shaokat, is a strict and reserved GP who dissects the New England Journal of Medicine for light reading. Yasmin despairs at her younger brother, Arif, an expectant father who, having recently graduated from university, is now seeking a television career but rarely leaves his bedroom. Meanwhile, unknown to Yasmin, Joe visits a psychologist weekly as he secretly struggles with a sex addiction. With themes of intergenerational conflict, violence, sexuality, infidelity, race, gender, religion, and identity, Ali interrogates the values and flaws of modern British society. She convincingly illustrates human imperfections, frustrations, desires, vulnerabilities, and fears. All characters portrayed have unbecoming traits – some more challenging to defend than others – but Ali convincingly redeems them all as fallible, but unquestionably human, products of their experiences and hardships. Love Marriage lures you in with a title that promises an idealised union, a champion of free choice, but by the novel’s end Ali presents relationships as forged through bravery, trauma, and hope- and calls for a reappraisal of which choices we consider to be truly courageous and commendable.

Having first coined the epigram “marketplace for outrage” in her 2007 Guardian article ‘The Outrage Economy’, Ali calls us to buy shades of grey in our fabrics of understanding. Set in 2016, Love Marriage builds a tense political backdrop, with Brexit and immigration entering dialogue – notably from Harriet’s dubious house party guests. Also central to the multi-narrative novel is Yasmin’s daily experience as an NHS junior doctor on a geriatric ward, where she navigates discrimination, deaths, complaints, understaffing, overworked and overinvolved colleagues, bumptious superiors, and rebellious patients. In a nod to Adam Kay’s memoir This Is Going to Hurt, Ali lays bare the unsustainable pressures on NHS workers and patients. Furthermore, Ali reminds us of the spectrum of racism that persists in society – including blatant, overt bigotry – such as when a patient’s relative insists on speaking to a ‘British doctor’, Yasmin is advised by the ironically named PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) to accept the blame instead of the perpetrator. Ali also highlights subtler, less traceable forms of prejudice, such as at an awards event, when Harriet suggests to young eco-thriller novelist, Nathan Clark, that to be a published author, he should write about “something a little closer to home”. Yasmin notes Harriet’s tacit comment: “Because he’s black”, as Ali also exposes more covert forms of prejudice.

Not only masterful when confronting weighty themes, Ali also excels in depicting engrossing characters that prickle with vitality. Through maximising free indirect speech, the author reveals the elations, frustrations, and hypocrisies present within everyone in a humbling portrait of modern British society. No character is simply a protagonist, antagonist, or is reduced to a stereotype. Each defies categorisation as Ali shows that while flaws and insecurities are woven into our identities, they are neither fixed nor unworkable. Love Marriage offers the optimistic message that true happiness is not found in conventionality or normalcy. In a testament to the dynamism, resilience, and variety of humanity, Ali’s most illuminating message is communicated by Anisah: “Life is not simple.”

16-19s RUNNER-UP

The Great Gatsby – Scott Fitzgerlad
By Louis Kruger

‘The great American novel’, doomsayer of the American Dream, chronicle of the Jazz Age…

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

We are constantly told what The Great Gatsby is: bombarded with trite opinions and sweeping sentiments that give superficial explanations of its timelessness. As a result, the book is never allowed to simply to *be*—to float in empty awareness, to be encountered for the first time, probed with innocence, openness, and sincerity.

Such was the misfortune of my first encounter with the novel. I picked it up expecting a grand, incisive social commentary, a book replete with profound and original genius. It is no surprise I found it teeth-gratingly boring.

My relationship with The Great Gatsby would have ended right there… except, we were forced to study it at school. What follows can only be described as a slow-burn romance. First, I leaned into Daisy’s “breathless whisper”, sweet as a sylvan harp. Next, I was entranced by Gatsby’s smile with its “quality of eternal reassurance”, filled with the promise of dreams. Finally, delving into the novel, I discovered something more profound (and far less boring) than social commentary: Jay Gatsby, not as a plot element, not as an exposé of society, but as a real person. As Nick says, “He came alive to me, delivered from the womb of his purposeless splendour.”

Gatsby came alive when I learned about his past. An ambitious young man, who divides his time into blocks, and seeks by rigid discipline to improve himself – is it myself or Gatsby that I am describing? Jay Gatsby, who dreams such wonderful dreams, who is so exquisitely naïve, and whose every action exhales the romance of young love – this is a character moulded to my heart. The longer I gaze at him, the more I see myself.

I mean, Gatsby is the most extraordinary person you will ever meet. He is, very literally, an incarnation of the fantasy of childhood, a promise “that the rock of the world [is] founded securely on a fairy’s wing”, that the dream is the truest thing of all. Many read The Great Gatsby as a criticism of the imagination. In contrast, Fitzgerald, through Nick, judges Gatsby to be good: “Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams…”. Despite Gatsby’s fate, he’s still worth “the whole damn bunch put together”. The novel is therefore not a criticism of dreams, but a lamentation, perhaps also a warning, of their fate; if anything, it rails against “careless” reality, which always falls short; it is, finally, a celebration of the human spirit, which the novel says must dream.

What distinguishes The Great Gatsby most of all, I think, is Fitzgerald’s subtle wit, and the book’s frenetic energy, in tension with the controlled power of its prose. Each word is like a seed dropped in the soil of my mind, throbbing with fecundity, erupting in bright hues of poetry; or perhaps we may describe them as controlled, precise punches, delivered in a jazzy rhythm, building up to a crescendo, a knockout blow which leaves the reader flabbergasted. I apologise for the double metaphor, but when one is confronted with prose of this quality a single comparison will not suffice (and neither will two, I’m afraid).

So, why read The Great Gatsby? Simply because it is beautiful. There is no need to hunt for themes, ideas, and symbols, as we are so often told to do; revel in its style, and soak up its imagination. In doing so, we come to see that what Nick says of Gatsby is true of the book itself: “There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.” Mayhaps you too may discover the promise of life embedded in this beautiful tragedy.

20+ WINNER

Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
By Clotilde Chinnici

Like Jo March

Before I even learned how to read – at the age of five, which my younger self thought was outrageously late given the premature love for books that had matured in me by then – Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women was already my favourite book. I would beg my parents to read it to me out loud over and over, so many times that they probably learned it by heart before I was finally able to read it myself. Some years later, Little Women was the first book I ever read in English: I was so proud of having read an entire book in my second language, even if it was a book I knew like the back of my hand.

Little Women was set in a world not so unlike my own, a world I was somewhat familiar with. Maybe that is why it always felt like coming home whenever I picked it up to read it again. I remember treasuring the dark-blue-covered hardback edition of the book like it was my most prized possession. In some sense, I suppose it was: the book accompanied me through every season of life, from childhood holidays to moving to another country for university.

The more I read Little Women and the more I could see myself in its undeclared protagonist: Jo March. Upon further re-readings of Louisa May Alcott’s book, I noticed so many similarities between myself and Jo that I could not help but wonder: was Jo so uncannily like me or did I grow, perhaps inevitably, to resemble my favourite character from my favourite childhood book? No matter the answer, every time I revisited Little Women, I concluded that I was Jo. Like Jo, I too was convinced that my hair was my only beauty. Like Jo, I would put on plays for my family and convince everyone around me to be part of them. Like Jo, I have also been always ready to put my interests and passions before any sort of romantic relationship, as I still felt like women had to choose between their careers and love, more than 150 years after Little Women was first published. I also shared Jo’s undying love for reading and writing, my two most loyal companions in childhood and adolescence.

Much like for Jo, books would offer me an escape, an open door to adventure, where I could be whoever I wanted to be, fighting off monsters or being a Jedi in a galaxy far far away. And yet, Little Women was none of this. It did not have the magic, the fairies and fantastic creatures, or the thrilling adventures I would look for in my books. But it had heart and it had passion. And, most importantly, it had me, it allowed me to see myself between the pages I had grown to love so much. It showed me that while I may assume my life was boring and ordinary because it had no dragons and enchanted castles, it was just as extraordinary as all those adventures I lost myself in. And if I was like Jo and Jo was like me, then I was extraordinary enough to be the protagonist of my own story. And maybe, just maybe, I was extraordinary enough, like Jo and Louisa May Alcott herself, to even write it.

When I revisited the book once again into adulthood, despite feeling less like an adult and more like a grown teenager, I came to the extraordinary epiphany that I did not have to exclusively be Jo, nor any of the sisters. With Little Women, Louisa May Alcott was able to achieve something modern media still struggles to come to terms with: the fact that women come in many different shapes and forms. While, like me, you may have Jo’s love for writing and her characteristic stubbornness, you can also see myself in Beth’s passion for playing the piano or Amy’s desire to be great. And you can also aspire to be Marmee, with her kind soul and big heart. Perhaps this is the beauty of Little Women, and the reason why everyone can find someone to relate to even today. With her book, Louisa May Alcott gave her audience multiple role models to look up on, showing little girls – and boys – that there is so much they can be and so much they can grow up to do, offering many choices and possibilities for their futures, all of which are equally important and beautiful.

20+ RUNNER-UP

The Mersey Sound
By Christina Swingler

Still Together

I was not overly impressed, the poetry book looked like it had gone through a wringer. So when Twang offered me the chance to borrow it from him, I hesitated.

It was the early 70s, and I was just old enough to be drinking in a cider pub with a group of friends. Poetry was not foremost in my mind, but after Twang explained he’d carried his book, for company, in the back pocket of his flares, while hitch-hiking round the UK, I was interested.

Twang’s enthusiasm for the poems was infectious. He described how this book, titled The Mersey Sound, by Liverpool poets, Roger McGough, Brian Pattern and Adrian Henri had changed perceptions of poetry. He was sure I would like them, adding he would look me up to collect his book when next in town.

Intrigued by ‘travelling’ Twang, nicknamed because he ‘twanged’ the Jews Harp, and by his scruffy book of poems, I accepted.

The book lounged in my big rug bag for weeks, before it finally fell into my lap, as if demanding to be read – so I did.

The first poem is Adrian Henri’s, ‘Tonight at Noon,’ which is packed with contradictory ideas (including the title). The words snake round reality, where everything is muddled and unexpected. I loved the imagery, such as elephants telling each other human jokes; pigeons hunting cats; pigs flying in formation, and the idea of daffodils in autumn…wouldn’t that be nice?

“The first daffodils of autumn will appear
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees”

Sadly Henri passed away in 2000, however his legacy helped characterise the popular culture of the late 60s in verse, song, and art.

I still vividly recall the impact of Roger McGough’s free-flowing poem,
‘Let me Die a Youngman’s Death’. He light-heartedly mocks the ordinariness of death. He neither wants “a clean in-between the sheets holywater death”, or a life devoid of sin.

“When I’m 73 and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party”

The words of these extraordinary poets talked of the ordinary and extraordinary, using the everyday for inspiration, full of humour, rich in imagery, sometimes sad, intimate and often without punctuation!

Twang, as promised, called to collect his book. We had a drink together, talked about The Mersey Sound poems, how they’d emerged from the post modern movement centred in Liverpool, where poets, musicians, like the Beatles, and other artists created a new culture, which brought everything together.

I discovered Twang’s real name was Rod, we had a lot of shared interests, particularly travel. We became a couple, taking our delicate Mersey Sound across the world, looking after it like a poorly child. We shared its treasures with other interested young people, resonating mostly with those familiar with the Beat Poets in the US.

Brian Patten’s poem ‘Travelling Between Places’, perfectly captured this period of our lives.

“when the late afternoon
drifts into the woods, when
nothing matters specially”

And that’s exactly how it felt.

The poems made me feel connected to something at that time of change. Some people say you had to be there (Liverpool in the 60s), to engage with The Mersey Sound. The poets were representative of that time, influencing the shifting attitudes to literature, music and art. But their legacy continues to appeal today with their wit, energy and accessibility, paving the way for new audiences and performance poets such as John Cooper Clark, and Benjamin Zephaniah.

After we returned home from our travels we got married, bought a house, had children, and our well-thumbed Mersey Sound was retired to the bookshelf for a well-earned rest.

But this is not the end of its journey, as years later it was taken out of retirement, with its wonky spine, tatty splattered pages, but still together, like us, to follow our son to university.

He’s now the custodian of our book. Perhaps one day he’ll introduce it to his young son, as Rod (Twang) had introduced it to me over half a century earlier – nicely summed up in McGough’s poem ‘You and Your Strange Ways’

“even though we have grown older together
and my kisses are little more than functional
I still love you
you and your strange ways”

The Mersey Sound has made a lasting impression on me, and my family. I’d urge anyone to give it a try.