The author of Ducks, Newburyport (yes, the 1,000-page, one-sentence novel) has some ideas. Lucy Ellmann: “I find the annual celebration of contemporary writing, the Xmas lists of 2019 books, quite offensive. It seems so arrogant. These lists suggest that the most relevant books must be the ones most recently published. That’s daft. It’s nice of people to take an interest in new writing of course, especially when one has a book out that year oneself, but let’s face it, it’s a marketing ploy. They want to shift some books, and to do so they glory in the ‘now’ – while everybody knows readers would get more from reading Ulysses or Woolf or Kafka.” – The Guardian (UK)