Now that the 2006 Booker Prize longlist has been out for 24 hours, we’re seeing the commentary roll in. So far, the big story shaping up appears to be Peter Carey, who could win for a record third time with Theft, versus Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, who many believe was robbed when his novel Cloud Atlas failed to win a couple years back. Also getting talked up as potential favorites in the early going are Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan and Sarah Waters for The Night Watch.
Looking at the media coverage, The Guardian highlights the difficulty that the judges reportedly encountered in assembling the longlist, taking “more than six hours to pick 19 authors, a length of debate far longer than that taken by previous judges to choose most eventual winners.” The Times leads with Andrew O’Hagan, who lost out to J.M. Coetzee five years ago. Metro notes that Hisham Matar’s In the Country of Men is the only debut novel on the list. At the Literary Saloon, Michael looks at the total number of books considered for the prize this year and in years past, while lamenting that this even longer list isn’t made public.
Of course, the most amusing part of the annual Booker frenzy is the role of the oddsmakers, who take bets on the prize. Nearly all of the Booker commentary mentions these odds in gauging who might be favored, and the BBC rounds up the details on that front. Serious gamblers, meanwhile, should head straight to William Hill, where the latest odds are posted. As of this writing, Black Swan Green is the favorite at 6 to 1, while Nadine Gordimer’s Get a Life brings up the rear at 26 to 1.
