Book Reviews

ManBooker Prize 2014: countdown begins

Just one more day before we know which dozen books the judges have long listed for this year’s Man Booker Prize. It’s the first year in its 40 years plus history that the prize has been open to authors outside the Commonwealth. From this year onwards, the prize could be awarded to any author writing originally in English, irrespective of nationality, so long as their novel has been published in the UK this year. Which means that 2014 could be the year of the Americans with Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch one of the front runners.

But the Booker is well known for springing a few surprises so while I expect she’ll be on the shortlist, the million dollar question is who will give her a run for her money? Anyone like to predict?

The Guardian is running its popular Not the Booker Prize where readers can nominate books that might not be on the official list. Nominations close at midnight (UK time) on 27 July 2014. A shortlist will be published the following day. You can join in the fun via this link. Some of the books with more than one nomination are:

The Incarnations by Susan Barker

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

Wounding by Heidi James

Cairo by Louis Armand

With a Zero at its Heart by Charles Lambert

The official Man Booker shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 9 September 2014 and then the winner announced on Tuesday 14th October 2014.

BookerTalk

What do you need to know about me? 1. I'm from Wales which is one of the countries in the UK and must never be confused with England. 2. My life has always revolved around the written and spoken word. I worked as a journalist for nine years then in international corporate communications 3. My tastes in books are eclectic. I love realism and hate science fiction and science fantasy. 4. I am trying to broaden my reading horizons geographically by reading more books in translation

10 thoughts on “ManBooker Prize 2014: countdown begins

  • My reaction to the nomination for Fowler was ‘really’?????

    Reply
  • Well, none of those made it, did they? I looked at the list at lunch time and found that my reaction to most was either ‘who?’, ‘what?’ or ‘really?’ However, after having done some searching around and found out a little more about each one, I have to say that most of them sound interesting. The only one I know I’m not going to read is ‘Narrow Road to the Deep North’ because my father was a FEPOW and I know that however good the book is I am just not going to be able to handle it emotionally.

    Reply
  • Oh in the case of the change do you think Rene Denfeld could be up for The Enchanted?

    Reply
      • I thought The Enchanted was. Solid 3 stars for me – a good book. I didn’t feel like it was a 5 star book like a lot of people on You Tube.

        Reply
        • I haven’t got used to watching You Tube videos about books. I saw a few and the style of delivery was so bad the experience put me off. are there particular ones you think are good quality Didi?

        • Mine. 😬no there are some good ones – Estellasrevenge Rinceyreads and a bunch of others… I’ll do a post on them. Video reviews are done in a different way and in little time. Honestly there are very few good reviewers because giving wast the story line is not allowed in my book. My channel is called frenchiedee.

  • Some interesting mix this year with the first year of Americans

    Reply
  • Intriguing.

    Reply
  • I love that you keep me updated and I don’t have to deal with the main Booker site!

    Reply

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