The votes are in -and there's a runaway winner: The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet. David Mitchell's most recent novel, published in 2010, won nearly as many nominations as all his others combined.
It was described variously as "a terrific, surprising, masterful work of fiction", "one of my favourite books", "stunning", "his most accomplished novel in execution, style and artistry", "one of the most beautiful stories" and "breathtaking".
That doesn't entirely fit the critical consensus. No less than Dave Eggers wrote in the New York Times: "It offers innumerable rewards for the patient reader and confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive." But while James Wood told New Yorker readers, "By any standards, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a formidable marvel," he also had a few doubts. "It is a brilliant fairy tale," he said, but that wasn't entirely a good thing: "Even nightingales, as a Russian proverb has it, can't live off fairy tales." Meanwhile, the LA Times socked it to Mitchell: "The narrative is pockmarked with too many meanwhile-back-at-the-temple leaps, and the thread shows too often when Mitchell tries to stitch together the book's set pieces and character studies. In his earlier books, the disconnect of stories across time and space were fascinatingly and proddingly jarring. Here, they're frequently just jarring."
The Guardian also gave an uncertain review. Christopher Tayler eventually warmed to the book, but also said: "It's clear that Mitchell has a problem when it comes to sustaining a straight narrative without benefit of channel-flicking" and "with one or two exceptions, the characters fall into goodies and baddies as well, and their doings – including the central love story – don't often rise above the needs of the plot."
The Observer was less equivocal. "This may not, quite, be a masterpiece, but it is unquestionably a marvel – entirely original among contemporary British novels, revealing its author as, surely, the most impressive fictional mind of his generation," said Alexander Linklater.
Personally, I am yet to read it, and the fact that it is divisive makes me more interested than ever - especially from the point of view of the rest of the month's discussions. I'm expecting to love it, since that's the reaction I've had to every other David Mitchell book I've read. But, let's see. I'm eager to get going. I expect you are too. To help you out, I'm delighted to say we have 10 copies to give away to to the first 10 readers in the UK to post "I want a copy please", along with a constructive comment relevant to the book. And if you're lucky enough to get your request in quick enough, don't forget to email laura.kemp@theguardian.com (Ginny is away for a couple of months) as we can't track you down ourselves. Be nice to her too.
In the meantime, let's get reading. And all comments and suggestions for things we might discuss this month are very welcome, as usual.
