Thursday, September 06, 2007

short changed

And so the Booker judges have announced their final six -

I’m pleased to see The Gathering there - good that they aren’t put off by possibly the most miserable of the 13. And a wave to Mister Pip which so far is still so good.

Animal’s People and the mighty Darkmans seem reasonable choices based on what others have said about them - and I am looking forward to bumping them up the pecking order of my still to be reads.

But On Chesil Beach and The Reluctant Fundamentalist seem this years odd choices. Perhaps they fancied a couple of short reads to offset Darkmans? perhaps they thought they better put the Hamid on so that people wouldn’t solely point the finger at McEwan for being too short? perhaps McEwan is on just to keep him sweet? perhaps Hamid purely for the post 9/11 fiction fans?

Looking forward to seeing what others think of the list - and to hear the cursing that The Welsh Girl fell at the first hurdle.

3 comments:

Stewart said...

Damn right there's cursing for The Welsh Girl's exclusion. The only one that offends me was The Reluctant Fundamentalist - there's nothing to it. At least McEwan's, to me, is still fresh in my head. Hamid's had about as much depth as a shopping list.

Stefanie said...

So glad Self Help didn't make the cut. I would have been worried if it did. Unfortunately, it's the only one out of all of them that I have read. I'd really like to read Mr Pip though and The Welsh Girl. Too bad the latter didn't make it to the shortlist

jem said...

Stewart - hopefully on closer inspection the judges will realise the weakness of the Hamid.

Stefanie - now you've got me really worried about Self Help! Its sliding further down the list by the day - I'm going to have to motivate myself more now some of the heavier looking titles havent made the shortlist - but I still want to read them. Mister Pip is finished now - review soon - and I really liked it, it reminded me a bit of the Sia Fiegel I read for my visit to Samoa on compassjourneypage.