Their mother Annabel is emotionally disconnected from her babies, appearing to suffer from postnatal depression.

She and her twin brother Jamie (who will later become an artist) are the only children of Addison Graves, a ship’s captain, and a 19-year-old socialite who falls pregnant on their first, casual, liaison.

The novel begins with an account of the circumstances preceding her birth. The novel’s heroine is Marian Graves, an early 20 th century aviator, a contemporary of Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh. Whilst wishing to take nothing away from the author, I suspect there was a brilliant and meticulous editor involved with this book too. Fascinating, clever, brilliantly conceived, exhaustively researched, intricately plotted and beautifully written. Well, here we are, just over halfway through the month and I have finished it – I COULD NOT STOP LISTENING! This is an extraordinary book, a huge achievement. My book club also decided to read it, though with some trepidation, as its longer than most books we select. Between twice or thrice weekly runs, a bit of driving for work and a bit of solitary walking, I decided I could probably get through it in the month. It is by some distance the longest on the shortlist – 608 pages, which amounts to 25 hours listening time. Looking at the relative heft of each book, I decided that Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead would have to be ‘read’ as an audiobook. I have never actually managed to get through all six books in the six weeks or so between the shortlist being publicised and the award ceremony, but this year I am determined. I find some parts so transporting I could re-read them endlessly.When I set out a few weeks ago out on my annual quest to read the Booker shortlist ahead of the announcement of the winner early next month, I decided I’d need a strategy. 'A feast of a book,' said Shipstead, 'A grand but precise collage of voices and styles and points of view, Byatt’s 1990 novel is a romantic and intellectual epic about two modern literary academics uncovering an unknown love affair between two Victorian poets. The book is a mysterious love story with a passion for literature at its core. Set in the 1990s, the story involves the pair researching the lives of two Victorian poets by combing through their journals, poems and letters.

Great circle review