I know almost nothing about this one. I'm intrigued by the title and the premise of someone in the 1980s researching Victorian poets. And that is all I know about this book. (I've long given up on reading books simply because they won the Booker.)

I didn´t even know that this has won the Booker prize. Anyway, I hope it´s going to be a good one :)

I hope so, too.

The novel starts with a quote which makes me think that Byatt may be playing with the concept of "romance" in this book. I hope she does.

When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man’s experience. The former – while as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart – has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer’s own choosing or creation … The point of view in which this tale comes under the Romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a bygone time with the very present that is flitting away from us.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Preface toThe House of the Seven Gables

I've just finished chapter 2 and can already see that there is a lot of "play" in this. I'm hazarding a guess that ventriloquism will be another theme. I'm intrigued.

That speaks for the book. I've really like what I have read so far.

This has been on my radar since I first heard about almost 20 years ago, but I would probably not have enjoyed reading it back then. It's really weird how sometimes we know we're not ready for a book, yet. Or the book knows...