The Bookseller.com

7th September 2008

Philip Jones is the managing editor of theBookseller.com. He will blog with links and comment about the book business.

The Booker circus

29.07.08

And so the Booker circus begins with the publication of the Man Booker Dozen,  a longlist consisting of 13 titles, some of which seem highly unlikely to make it to the shortlist stage.

The knives are already out for the judges, with the inclusion of thriller Child 44 likely to raise the wrath of purists and publishers. As Canongate's Jamie Byng would have it: "I cannot respect a judging committee that decides to pick a book like Child 44 . . ."

Literary editors will, though, be mostly pleased with the inclusion of heavyweights Salman Rushdie (The Enchantress of Florence), Amitav Ghosh (Sea of Poppies) and Philip Hensher (The Northern Clemency) among the titles. These three are almost certain to be among the six shortlisted books, though Rushdie did not make the cut [three*] years ago.

Independent presses Atlantic (The White Tiger),  Faber (The Secret Scripture), Tindal Street Press (Girl in a Blue Dress), and Verso (From A to X) will also be delighted. For the Birmingham-based Tindal Street Press it is becoming a regular thing, having been longlisted last year for What Was Lost.

Save for Macmillan, the big publishers share the remaining longlisted titles pretty evenly: Random House has two (The Lost Dog, The Enchantress of Florence); Hachette has two (The Clothes on their Backs, Sea of Poppies); and HarperCollins has two (The Northern Clemency, Netherland). Penguin (A Fraction of the Whole) and Simon & Schuster (Child 44) have one each.

Which brings us to Child 44, a fine thriller, but only slightly maligned by Byng's view of it as "a fairly well-written and well-paced thriller that is no more than that". "One is entitled to care about a book if you are its publisher," he told me, explaining his disappointment that Helen Garner's The Spare Room had missed out.

It is not the first time the Booker judges have thrown in a curve-ball, usually aimed at stirring up controversy. The 2004 longlist had Neil Cross mixing it with eventual winner Alan Hollinghurst, and the shortlisted, Sarah Hall and David Mitchell. Writers clearly in a different league.

Here's my view: Child 44 will not win the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Rushdie, Ghosh  and Hensher are the clear favourites, with Grant, Barry and Toltz likely to join them on the shortlist.

That said, bookies William Hill have installed Joseph O'Neill's Netherlands as their 3/1  favourite, with Salman Rushdie as second and Child 44 the third favourite.

Job done, Booker judges.

* See comments below on my errors.

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