Another year, another Man Booker Prize for fiction and the longlist has been announced.
Now I’m not a particularly patriotic person but … Two Aussies on the list!! Go team! Three actually if you include Aravind Adiga’s, author of The White Tiger, who was educated in Australia and holds Australian nationality.
The Aussies are first-time author, Steve Toltz with A Fraction of the Whole and Michelle de Kretser’s The Lost Dog.
What I find interesting is that a few of the books aren’t even published yet: From A to X and The Northern Clemency. It seems strange to me. Imagine a Best Film Oscar being given to a film that was yet to be released. I would have thought these books would simply be in the running for the prize next year. I bet the publishers are scrambling like chooks on an iceberg to get those books into stores ASAP.
I briefly entertained the idea of reading all the books on the list but (a) I’d be living in fantasy land to attempt that feat at the moment given that I spend more time reading My first words to my son than I do reading novels. (b) As written about on this blog I’ve vowed to never read a book because of the author’s name or because it seems every other person on the planet has read it and raved about it.
And not all of the books on the list appeal to me anyway. Netherland, The Clothes on Their Backs, Child 44 and A Fraction of the Whole are the ones that immediately caught my eye. I think reading these four novels is an achievable goal.
Visit the Synopsis and author bio available on the Man Booker site.
And below are links to Amazon:
- The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
- Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold
- The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
- From A to X by John Berger (Due for release in September.)
- The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
- Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
- The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
- A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
- The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher. (Due for release in February 2009.)
- Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
- The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
- Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
- A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
The shortlist will be announced on September 9 with the winner announced on October 14.
Have you read any of the novels from the list yet? Currently reading or plan to read?
Leave a comment