The Man Booker Prize might be my favorite of the big literary awards… don’t tell the National Book Award or Pulitzer Prize committees!  I suppose I still look to the Mother Country for some important things, such as royal babies, fabulous boy bands like One Direction, and great picks in literature.  In years past, the Man Booker Prize was awarded to the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.  This year, there’s been a huge change:  now any book written in English and published in the United Kingdom may receive the award.  It’s been called a “game changer” for the Award and has generated no small amount of controversy.

For excellent summaries of each nominee, plus author profiles, see the official Man Booker Prize website.  I’ve reviewed two of the books – We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler, Nashville’s All-City Read this year, and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, by Joshua Ferris.  I’m only going to link to the second review, because I think it’s definitely more fun to read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves without knowing quite so much about it.

Without further ado, this year’s nominees are:

 

cover134.Neel Mukherjee-The Lives Of Others  coverTo Rise Again At A Decent Hour cover - Copy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

83.Ali Smith-How to be both jacket132.Richard Flanagan-The Narrow Road To The Deep North cover129.Howard Jacobson-J cover

Categorized in: