2008 Man Booker Longlist announced. . .

I love the Man Booker Prize - mostly because the debates in the British press are always so juicy to read. Even though I'm still mad that David Mitchell didn't win for Cloud Atlas. This year, I was really hoping for Steven Galloway's Cellist of Sarajevo to make the cut, but alas. Still, as always, it's an intriguing list though I'm embarrassed to say that I've not yet read any of them. I do have the manuscript of Philip Hensher's Northern Clemency though (it'll be available in Canada next spring, but will probably be moved up if he wins) and that's shot up to the top of my reading pile. You can read more about the prize, the judges etc. at the Man Booker website.

Here's the full longlist:

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

The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser

A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher

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 judges promise this is a list full of large scale narratives and lots of humour (hooray!). I'd give early odds on Sebastian Barry - he should have won when his last novel A Long, Long Way was shortlisted. Beautiful writer. Let the literary debates begin.