Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« Leaked Straw Poll: Who The Lib... | A Simple Solution »

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

England to the rest of the literary world: “Nothing that exciting happening over here!”

posted by on August 8 at 15:39 PM

booker380.jpg

According to the Guardian:

Four first-time novelists and a near-total absence of literary stars combine to make this year’s Man Booker prize longlist announcement one of the most low-key in many years.

Here’s the longlist:

Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Self Help by Edward Docx
The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
The Gathering by Anne Enright
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn
Consolation by Michael Redhill
Animal’s People by Indra Sinha
Winnie & Wolf by AN Wilson

Just asked man-about-the-office (and McEwan fan) Sean Nelson if McEwan deserves the Booker for On Chesil Beach. Quoth the Nelson: “No. Hells no. He already got one for a book that didn’t deserve it. He already got his honorary one.”

RSS icon Comments

1

Contrary to your post headline, I think this list is more exciting than a longlist of all the usual suspects.

Posted by Gabriel | August 8, 2007 4:04 PM
2

Hmm, this may be a naive comment, but it's kind of cool (McEwan notwithstanding) that relative unknowns are getting the spotlight.

Now stop bugging me so I can get back to my 3rd reading of the latest Harry Potter.

Posted by Brad | August 8, 2007 4:11 PM
3

He may not deserve the prize, but McEwan deserves to be on the longlist for On Chesil Beach.

Posted by josh | August 8, 2007 4:20 PM
4

Shit, I should've published a novel and entered.

(j/k I'm illiterate)

Posted by Gomez | August 8, 2007 5:47 PM
5

Hell, I should've written a novel and entered this year.

(j/k I'm illiterate)

Posted by Gomez | August 8, 2007 5:49 PM
6

Good lord, guys, does your Slog server run on an old 386 or something? Geez.

Posted by Gomez | August 8, 2007 5:56 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).