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|title=The Luminaries

|sort=Luminaries, The

|publisher=Granta

|date=August 2013

}}

Eleanor Catton's ''The Luminaries'' is set in the New Zealand gold rush of the late 1860s. It's a story about greed, power, gold, dreams, opium, secrets, betrayal and identity, but most of all, it's a celebration of the art of story telling, both in terms of Catton's book and the stories her characters have to tell. It's the kind of book that is perfect escapism and which wraps you up in its world. If you like big, chunky books that you can get lost in for hours, then this is one for you.

This is not the first gold rush story to feature on the Booker lists, with [[The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt]] featuring on the 2011 short list. [[Harvest by Jim Crace]] remains the clear bookies favourite to take the prize this year, but ''The Luminaries'' will provide stiff opposition in my opinion.

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