Booker Longlist Announced

The longlist nominees for the Man Booker Prize were announced yesterday. The Booker prize, if you don't follow such things, is an annual British literary award, given to writers who are either British, Irish, or who live in the Commonwealth of nations that is made up of many of the UK's former colonies. It's one of the top honors in literature.

I've followed literary awards for a few years now, but last year I decided to try something I'd always wanted to do but never attempted: I'd read the whole list of nominees before the winner was announced. I chose the Booker longlist, which was announced right around that time, and started out with The Northern Clemency, by Philip Hensher, which I really loved. Hensher, an openly gay author, kept me captivated with his writing, which isn't always easy to do when the book in question is over 700 pages long. I devoured it very quickly, though, loving (most of) the characters and the portrait of Britain in the 1970's and 80's.

I moved on to Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith, which was a decent thriller set in the Soviet Union of the early 1950's, but seemed an odd choice for a literary award.

I was able to find a copy of The Northern Clemency through the University library, but I quickly discovered that several of the titles on the longlist hadn't been published in the United States yet and I was so disappointed that I ended up abandoning the effort with only those two titles read. I was very glad to see Hensher's book make the shortlist, but in the end the prize went to The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga.

This year, I know better than to attempt to read all the titles (several of which, again, haven't been published here in the U.S. yet) before they pick a winner, but I am going to try and read the titles which are available. I put holds on several of them at the library this afternoon. If I find anything as enjoyable as The Northern Clemency was, it will be well worth it!

Here's this year's longlist:

A.S. Byatt, The Children's Book
J.M. Coetzee, Summertime
Adam Foulds, The Quickening Maze
Sarah Hall, How to Paint a Dead Man
Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness
James Lever, Me Cheeta
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
Simon Mawer, The Glass Room
Ed O'Loughlin, Not Untrue and Not Unkind
James Scudamore, Heliopolis
Colm Toibin, Brooklyn
William Trevor, Love and Summer
Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger