The Booker Prize longlist has just been announced and, despite counselling myself repeatedly to leave well alone, I find myself drawn in. Because it is actually a very exciting list. No, really. I mean it. It feels very fresh. Look, there is even a thriller on there. My only concern is that male authors outnumber female by 8-3, but I can get over that since eight of the books are on my TBR list already and only one doesn't interest me at all (the Linda Grant sadly, which I abandoned when it was on the Orange longlist). My library hold list is literally bulging with everything available.
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (Atlantic)
Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold (Tindal Street Press)
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (Faber and Faber)
From A to X by John Berger (Verso)
The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser (Chatto & Windus)
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (John Murray)
The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant (Virago)
The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher (Fourth Estate)
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill (Fourth Estate)
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie (Jonathan Cape)
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Simon & Schuster)
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz (Hamish Hamilton)
~~Victoria~~