The announcement of the finalists for this year’s Booker Prize shortens one of my reading lists. The 13 books on the longlist have been cut to six:
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry
Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh
The Clothes on Their Backs, Linda Grant
The Northern Clemency, Philip Hensher
A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Toltz
I truly enjoyed The Secret Scripture but know I’m not going to get them all read before the winner is announced October 14. While the local library has two of the books, two others aren’t yet available in the U.S. And one the library does have is 500+ pages so it is likely other commitments will keep me from it right now.
It may be the first in what I trust will be a rapidly growing and influential genre—the novel designed on purpose to be excluded from the Booker short-list.
Angela Carter, 1990 book review
