We've begun! With the Booker Prize Longlist revealed earlier this week, we are on our way to finding out this year's winner of the most prestigious and coveted award in English literature.
And in Woodbridge, once again we're investing in the process as members of our Booker Book Group take on the challenge of reading all 13 books between us to draw up our own shortlist, and potential champion.
Fairly predictably, most of the suggestions by bloggers, critics and booksellers about who might make this year's Longlist were wide of the mark. So the choices from judges Mary Beard, Jarvis Cocker, Patricia Lockwood, Raymond Antrobus and Rebecca Liu have been declared 'surprising', 'mischievous', 'original' and 'risk-taking'.
We'll let you know what we make of their decision when we've had our discussion on Monday 7 September. And, by the way, if you want to attend that meeting to hear the presentations and our deliberations, you will be very welcome. I'll be giving more details nearer the time.
As we divided up the books among our reviewers, there were some fascinating facts and figures to consider about the nominated titles.
Seven nationalities are featured among the authors with representatives from Jamaica, Mexico, Turkey, England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States.
The longest book is Marlon James's 'The Disappearers' at more than 600 pages, and the shortest is 'Helen of Nowhere' by Makenna Goodman at just 140 pages - six of the books are under 250 pages.
There are two previous winners - in Marlon James and Douglas Stuart - and Elizabeth Strout has now been nominated three times, this year with her novel 'The Things We Never Say'.
The oldest writer in the Longlist is 81-year-old M. John Harrison for 'The End of Everything', and he is also a former Booker judge, involved in the prize in 2022. The youngest writer this year is Djamel White, with 'All Them Dogs', who is 28.
There are three independent publishers featured – Fitzcarraldo Editions, Serpent’s Tail and Granta. Five books published by Penguin Random House imprints are nominated. Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, is represented twice, as is John Murray, part of Hachette. 4th Estate, part of HarperCollins, has a book on the list, too.
For our own scintillating statistics in Woodbridge, I can report that this year we've had our biggest response to the Booker Challenge yet which means that each title on the Longlist of 13 books could have had two readers. There are five men, and 22 women involved in the group.
We started the Booker Book Group in 2020 and have met each year ever since (though I think we might have skipped 2021 due to Covid).
For those members of our group who declared a preference in the books they might like to read this year, the most popular by far was Elizabeth Strout's 'The Things We Never Say', followed by 'John of John' by Douglas Stuart and 'The Palm House' by Gwendoline Riley. Also high on the list were 'All Them Dogs', 'Helen of Nowhere' and 'May We Feed the King'.
Currently it looks like two of the novels will be published too late for us to include reviews at our meeting, but I'm working on getting early copies of 'Switzy' by Emma Cline and Marlon James's 'The Disappearers'. It would be such a shame if we couldn't report back on all 13 Longlisted titles.
Thank you for reading.
As a journalist I contribute lifestyle features and profiles for regional and national newspapers and magazines. Earlier in my career, I was the launch editor of what became the leading business journal for the fitness industry in Europe, and I regularly contributed articles about the market for a US publication.
For more than 10 years I co-hosted an on-air book club on BBC Radio Suffolk with Lesley Dolphin. Listen to past discussions 
For my book reviews, event information and blog, please visit 
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