Soon all six novels shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize will be available for reading here at Missouri State University. They will be located in the Leisure Reading Collection, by the fireplace in the “Living Room” on the First Level of Duane G. Meyer Library. 

• The New Wilderness by Diane Cook (Oneworld Publications): Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the over-developed metropolis they call home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die, but there is only one alternative — joining a group of volunteers in the Wilderness State. 
  
  
• This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Faber & Faber): Here we meet Tambudzai, living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare and anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job.
  
  
• Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House): This is a love story and it is a story about betrayal. But not between lovers – between mother and daughter. 
  
  
• The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste (Canongate Books): Ethiopia. 1935. With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid.
  
  
• Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Picador, Pan Macmillan): 1981. Glasgow. The city is dying. Poverty is on the rise. People watch the lives they had hoped for disappear from view. Agnes Bain had always expected more. She dreamed of greater things….
  
  
• Real Life by Brandon Taylor (Originals, Daunt Books Publishing): Wallace, an introverted African-American transplant from Alabama, is at odds with the lakeside Midwestern university town where he is working toward a biochem degree.