The Booker Prize Longlist has been announced. 

http://www.bookrabbit.com/catalogue/browsecategory/categoryid/1360/Man-Booker-Fiction-Longlist-2008

The judges for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction have announced the longlist for this year’s prize.

The longlist of 13 books, often referred to as the ‘Man Booker Dozen’, was chosen from 112 entries; 103 were submitted for the prize and nine were called in by the judges.

The titles are:

Aravind Adiga The White Tiger 

Michelle De Kretser The Lost Dog

Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress 
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture 
John Berger From A to X 
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies 
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs 
Mohammed Hanif A Case of Exploding Mangoes 
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency 
Joseph O’Neill Netherland 
Salman Rushdie The Enchantress of Florence 
Tom Rob Smith Child 44 
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole

Chair of judges, Michael Portillo, commented:

“With a notable degree of consensus, the five Man Booker judges decided on their longlist of 13 books. The judges are pleased with the geographical balance of the longlist with writers from Pakistan, India, Australia, Ireland and UK. We also are happy with the interesting mix of books, five first novels and two novels by former winners. The list covers an extraordinary variety of writing. Still two qualities emerge this year: large scale narrative and the striking use of humour.”

What do you think of it? Take part in our discussions here:
http://www.bookrabbit.com/topics/showposts/topicid/325

About the Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known in short as the Booker Prize, is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland.

The winner of the Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and success. It is also a mark of distinction for authors to be nominated for the Booker longlist or selected for inclusion in the shortlist. In 1993, the Booker of Bookers Prize was awarded to Salman Rushdie for Midnight’s Children (the 1981 winner), as the best novel to win the award in the first 25 years of its existence. A similar prize known as The Best of the Booker was awarded in 2008 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the prize - this was also won by Midnight’s Children.

The prize was originally known as the Booker-McConnell Prize after the company Booker-McConnell began sponsoring the event in 1968, and became commonly known as the “Booker Prize” or simply “the Booker”. When administration of the prize was transferred to the Booker Prize Foundation in 2002, the title sponsor became the investment company Man Group, which opted to retain “Booker” as part of the official title of the prize. The prize money awarded with the Booker Prize was originally £21,000, and was subsequently raised to £50,000 in 2002 under the sponsorship of the Man Group

Links

Official Site

List of Previous Winners

We’ve had a couple of bits of feedback that the site sometimes isn’t as fast as it should be, and it can be hard to search for books and use the bookcase application.

So this week Rob and Nick have implemented a new search engine that now operates all the book, author, user and content searches on the site.

So searching should now be blisteringly fast and bookcase tagging should be much easier.

It is also a more intelligent search, so you should now get better search result. Give it a try.

The complete set of seven Harry Potter “deluxe” first editions signed by J. K. Rowling sold at Cameo Fine Art Auctioneers in Midgham, Berkshire for £17,800. The Illustrated hard covers were in near fine condition, signed, but without dedication, went to an anonymous overseas buyer. Apparently the lots were not true first editions, but the first in Bloomsbury’s ‘deluxe’ series, but still, £17,800 is not a bad figure for the seller, and one wonders what the price the books would fetch if they were first editions.

Henry Winkler of Fonz fame from the classic hit TV series Happy Days has written the Hank Zipzer books about a 10-year-old boy with dyslexia to help dyslexic children. Winkler himself a dyslexia sufferer has been in London to launch the National Year of Reading and made an appearance at the Department of Children, Schools and Families’ Teaching Awards.

“Just because we learn differently, that does not mean that we are not incredibly smart human beings. That’s something I need every child to understand.”

His books are amusingingly titled Hank Zipzer: I Got a “D” in Salami and Hank Zipzer: Niagara Falls - or Does It?

…apparently these books ‘rock!’ very much like the Fonz.

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‘With Andy, the sky’s the limit…’ - John McEnroe. At Wimbledon in 2005, a young, brash Andy Murray came out of nowhere and thrashed star pros Georges Bastl and Radek Stepanek. His dramatic winning run came to an end against David Nalbandian, but a legend was born, and Britain had a new sporting hero. Henman Hill was renamed Murray Mound, and Henmania became Andymonium. In 2006, Murray went stellar. He won his first ATP trophy at San Jose, California, where he beat former world number 1s Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt en route to the title. In the same month he became the British Number 1. By the end of a wonderful year in which he became one of only two players to beat Roger Federer, Murray was number 17 in the world. But Murray is much more than a truly gifted tennis player and potential world champion.He has changed the face of the game, blowing away the Middle England cobwebs of the All England Club, and dividing opinion with his brash, straight-talking style, anti-establishment rhetoric and on-court anger and passion. A whole new generation of kids are now officially tennis fans. Andy has made tennis cool again, for the first time since the days of McEnroe, Borg and Nastase. Here, in his own words for the first time, Andy Murray will talk about the long, testing, and sometimes difficult path to superstardom. The boy from Dunblane will talk about having to deal with the constant limelight and attention from a media and a general public desperate for a genuine British tennis star, and he’ll give the exclusive lowdown on Wimbledon 2007 as he prepares to go all-out guns blazing for grass-court glory. Tempermental, gifted, passionate, fiery: Murray is the dazzling new face of tennis, and a role model to a whole generation. Andy’s story will enthrall and excite the entire country.