I’m back! And alive and kicking. Thanks for all the kind emails.
So the Man Booker Shortlist was announced.
- A S Byatt — “The Children’s Book”
- J M Coetzee — “Summertime”
- Adam Foulds — “The Quickening Maze”
- Hilary Mantel — “Wolf Hall”
- Simon Mawer — “The Glass Room”
- Sarah Waters — “The Little Stranger”
And yes, I might have been wrong about my Coetzee prediction. But I’ll double down and bet that he doesn’t score a hat trick and take it for the third time. I mean, really — I understand he’s a darling of the judges, but aren’t there a lot of other great authors out there?
I tell you what fascinated me: in the Guardian article, notice how they end it:
“At independent book chain Foyles, Jonathan Ruppin said he’d be backing Byatt to win, praising the judges for selecting a shortlist where “strong storytelling” seems to have been their primary criterion for inclusion. “Some may feel that the Man Booker is better awarded to something exquisitely beautiful, along the lines of recent winners such as John Banville’s The Sea or Anne Enright’s The Gathering, but as world’s best-known literary award, the Man Booker has a more popular mandate,” said Ruppin.
“It’s noticeable that this year the majority of writers in contention all have a few books to their names already, which perhaps underlines the fact that most outstanding authors are like vintage wines, developing a fuller, richer appeal as their careers progress. For bookshops, winners with a few books under their belt already tend to be better for sales: this gets people buying more books by that author and, we hope, encourages them to start exploring beyond the bestsellers at the front of the shop.”
Popularity (as measured by “strong storytelling”) and sales power (authors with a following because of multiple books stoke sales).
Effects of the economy seeping into the judging criteria?
