Ask Not For Whom The Rooster Crows…
Booker Prize Odds and More
The Booker longlist was announced yesterday. Going over the list, I noted that it didn’t seem very multi-cultural. One of the interesting things about the Booker is that any author from the Commonwealth of Nations or from Ireland is eligible. This means that any of 54 countries might send a writer to Booker glory. This year, however, the judging committee is keeping things geographically constrained, with only three countries represented among the 13 finalists:England, 9 (Byatt, Foulds, Harvey, Lever, Mantel, Hall, Mawer, Scudamore, Waters)Ireland, 3 (O’Loughlin, Toibin, Trevor)South Africa, 1 (Coetzee)Moving on to less serious matters, the Booker betting odds are now out (and subject to change as punters put their money on the line). The bookmakers like Toibin and Waters to win, but James Lever is putting in an impressive showing with his mock memoir of a chimp.4/1 Colm Toibin – Brooklyn4/1 Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger5/1 Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall6/1 J.M. Coetzee – Summertime8/1 James Lever – Me Cheeta10/1 A.S. Byatt – The Children’s Book12/1 William Trevor – Love and Summer14/1 Ed O’Loughlin – Not Untrue and Not Unkind14/1 Simon Mawer – The Glass Room16/1 James Scudamore – Heliopolis16/1 Adam Foulds – The Quickening Maze16/1 Sarah Hall – How to Paint a Dead Man16/1 Samantha Harvey – The Wilderness
John Banville’s The Sea wins Booker Prize
Mark will be happy. He recently posted the first three parts of his long interview with John Banville. Maybe now that Banville has won the Booker Prize for his novel, The Sea, Mark will get around to posting the interview’s final installment. From the Times story linked above:The chairman of the judges, Professor John Sutherland, described The Sea as “a masterly study of grief, memory and love recollected”. He hailed the quality of Banville’s writing: “You feel you’re in the presence of a virtuoso. In his hands, language is an instrument.”The Booker is typically a modest mover of books in the States, so it will be interesting to see if Knopf pushes up publication from the current release date of March 21, 2006. Right now only the British edition is available.An excerpt from The SeaFor one last bit of Booker fun before we put it all away until next year, visit this blogger who is almost done reading every book on the longlist (and gave the Banville just one out of five stars.)Update: Looks like Knopf is moving publication up to early November. The American version.
●
●
●