Books

The 2015 Bailey's Prize Longlist Is Out

by Meredith Turits

If there's one thing you can take away from the names on the 2015 Bailey's Women's Prize For Fiction Longlist, it's this: You have a lot of reading to do. As you (probably) know, every year, the insanely prestigeous literary prize honors the absolute best in what ladies are writing. Winners — who've in the past included A.M. Homes, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Marilynne Robinson, and last year Eimear McBride — take home £30,000 and the coveted bronze "Bessie" statue. The longlist of 20 novels for the 2015 prize is out... and I bet you're dying to know who made the cut, right?

It really is a stellar mix of women — and I'm not just blowing smoke (or pouring Bailey's). There are some writers whom you won't be surprised to see listed — Emily St. John Mandel, Sandra Newman, Sarah Waters, and Anne Tyler among them — as well as some newer names, like Sara Taylor, Laline Paull, and PP Wong. But you should certainly head over to the Bailey's site to see the full list, and also check out this cute tweet below to see the epic pile of pages they create when stacked together:

Impressive. And I'm filled with lots of lady-pride.

Twenty gets chopped down to a shortlist of six soon, and we'll find out the winner on June 3, aka best day. Congrats to the longlisters!

Image: Getty Images