Friday, September 10, 2010

Shortlist secretly revealed in advance

The day the Booker Prize shortlist was revealed traditionally involved hours of waiting while the judges wrangled and agonized their way to an agreement, but for the last three years the announcement has been surprisingly early. Then last Tuesday there was the faint whiff of rat in the air when Amazon seemed to pre-empt the announcement. Now we know why. Arifa Akbar in The Independent reveals that the judges picked the shortlist a week earlier for the benefit of booksellers. The authors were also informed. Apparently, this has been the case since 2008. This would be fair enough were it not for the potential for a bit of insider-dealing. How many people in the trade knew the shortlist in advance? Did the bookies know about this and were they still taking bets on books that were out of the running?

Labels:



http://www.wikio.com Add to My MSN Add to My Yahoo! Add to Google
YouGov.com - Get paid to have your say
Google Book Search
Go Somewhere Else

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Man Booker Prize Shortlist 2010


The shortlist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize has been announced:

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

Emma Donoghue
Room
(Pan MacMillan - Picador)

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

Howard Jacobson
The Finkler Question
(Bloomsbury)

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

Tom McCarthy
C
(Random House - Jonathan Cape)


All six authors will be reading from, and signing copies of, their shortlisted novels at London's Southbank Centre on Sunday 10 October. Five free pairs of tickets are on offer at the official Man Booker Prize website.

The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced on Tuesday 12th October.

Labels:



http://www.wikio.com Add to My MSN Add to My Yahoo! Add to Google
YouGov.com - Get paid to have your say
Google Book Search
Go Somewhere Else