Man Booker Prize

Well, our guesses as to who was going to win the Booker Prize were all wrong. The winner this year was Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The book is a historical novel about Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540), Henry VIII's "go-to man for his dirty work" according to Library Journal.

Wolf Hall beat out these other shortlisted titles:

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

Summertime by J.M.Coetzee (U.S. pub. date of 12/24/2009)

The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds (U.S. pub. date of 6/29/2010)

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (U.S. pub. date of 12/8/2009)

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

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Man Booker Prize

What is the Man Booker Prize?  Well, it's a pretty famous prize for fiction awarded each year. To qualify for the prize, an author must be a citizen of a Commonwealth country.  (The Commonwealth of Nations is comprised of 53 nations formerly part of the British empire.)  

The Man Booker Prize shortlist is going to be announced Tuesday, September 8.  The longlist was announced at the end of July and consists of 13 titles.  Two favorites  are A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book and Colm Toibin's Brooklyn.  

The Children's Book is scheduled to be published in the United States on October 6.  

Brooklyn came out back in May.  

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The White Tiger wins The Man Booker Prize

Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize on Tuesday. Never heard of the guy? Well, join the club. He’s a journalist and a first time novelist. His book, The White Tiger, explores India’s development as a modern economic power from the point of view of the chauffeur of a wealthy family. Learn more at: http://www.aravindadiga.com.

The Man Booker Prize

What’s the worst thing that could happen to Salman Rushdie, you might ask? Fatwa? Ex-wife Padma Lakshmi becoming host of the reality TV show “Top Chef?” Well, this year poor Salman got dissed by the Booker Prize judges. His new novel, The Enchantress of Florence, made the longlist, but failed to make the cut onto the shortlist of six titles.

Here are the Gang of Six shortlisted titles for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008:

The White Tiger by Madras-born Aravind Adiga

A Fraction of the Whole by Australian Steve Toltz

The Secret Scripture by Ireland’s Sebastian Barry

Sea of Poppies by Indian-born New Yorker Amitav Ghosh (U.S. pub. date Oct. 14)

The Clothes of Their Backs by Londoner Linda Grant (no U.S. pub. date yet)

The Northern Clemency by English writer Philip Hensher (U.S. pub. date Feb. 26, 2009)

The bookies’ 2/1 favorite so far? The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. The winner of the 50,000 pound prize will be announced October 14.

For those of you not in the know, the Man Booker Prize is awarded annually for best original full-length novel to a writer from a British Commonwealth country.