<book worm> booker vs bookmakers

Midnight’s Children may be best Booker ever, but Salman Rushdie’s latest novel has not made it to this year’s shortlist.

Rushdie’s 1981 book had people appeal allowing the author beat off critics’ favourite, J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.  The Best of the Booker was voted for by ordinary readers around the world earlier this year.  However, a select committee of judges of the Man Booker Prize 2008 has already snubbed the news-worthy author.  His latest book The Enchantress of Florence was simply too ordinary. 

The shortlist, confirmed on September 9th, does not include any of the big name early favourites. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry is now tipped by bookmakers, since Barry was also shortlisted in 2005. But bookmakers will be nervous if Booker judges continue in their contrary mood.

The Booker has always been more about critical kudos than prize money. Then again, when A.S. Byatt won in 1990 with her book Possession, she promised to build a swimming pool in Provence, rather than a literary reputation.

The full shortlist: Aravind Adiga The White Tiger; Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture; Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies; Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs; Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency; Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole. The winner will be announced on October 14^th