Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker Prize 2010

(I’m more than late to the party: my shame, it is deep.)

Link to British Council write up

The Finkler Question, reportedly witty, poignant and intelligent, wins the 2010 Man Booker Prize for fiction despite being uncontroversial, no more than merely wonderful, satisfying, sad,  subtle read.  (It’s even in the correct tense.)

Man Booker Shortlist: Yay?

The Man Booker Shortlist for 2010 was announced yesterday:

The six books, selected from the Man Booker Prize longlist of 13, are:

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)

Emma Donoghue Room (Picador – Pan Macmillan)

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Atlantic Books – Grove Atlantic)

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

Andrea Levy The Long Song (Headline Review –
Headline Publishing Group)

Tom McCarthy C (Jonathan Cape – Random House)

From the internets alone I was betting money on Jacobson and McCarthy – I was hoping for Mitchell, but he’s stocked in Bangalore as it is, so my heart is unwounded.

We (royal!) are very excited for Emma Donoghue, since she’s been highly recommended but unstocked in Bangalore until now. Booker shortlistings are an instant Yes, all right already! for Bangalore large capitalist bookstores, so we can expect all of these to show up, ready for the taking, in the next few months.

I’m not, somehow, very excited about C, but it sounds like the hep choice, if you’re the sort of person who bets on these things.

Results are to be announced October 12th.