I'm feeling rather ambivalent about the Booker Prize this year. I felt the same last year. Perhaps it's a product of getting older and more cynical, but I'm beginning to think it's just one giant marketing exercise. While it's wonderful to promote those books lucky enough to make the longlist, there's a part of me that worries about all the other wholly deserving titles that don't get the same attention.
Which is why I've really enjoyed following The Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. Yesterday, they published their own alternative longlist as judged by Guardian readers.
The list, in full, looks like this:
Ghosts and Lightening by Trevor Byrne
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Map Of The Invisible World by Tash Aw
Summertime by JM Coetzee
The City and The City by China Miéville
John The Revelator by Peter Murphy
Solo by Rana Dasgupta
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
Jerusalem by Patrick Neate
Spirit by Gwyneth Jones
This Is How by MJ Hyland
The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan
The White Woman On The Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey
The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
The Harrowing by Robert Dinsdale
Hodd by Adam Thorpe
The Tin-Kin by Eleanor Thom
The Winter Vault by Anne Michael
White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
The Father Of Locks by Andrew Killeen
The Children's Book by AS Byatt
Stone's Fall by Iain Pears
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
Down On Out On Murder Mile by Tony O'Neill
Rose by Gillian Green
Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
Grace, Lamar and Laszlo The Beautiful by Deborah Kay Davies
Ten Storey Love Song by Richard Milward
Tender by Mark Illis
Jeff In Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
Little Gods by Anne Richards
A Kind Of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
Great Waters by Kit Whitfield
Black Rock by Amanda Smyth
Red Dog, Red Dog by Patrick Lane
Harare North by Brian Chickwava
Generation A by Douglas Coupland
Tomas by James Palumbo
Neverland by Simon Crump
The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville
All The Colours Of The Town by Liam McIvanney
Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
The Outlander by Gil Adamson
How To Paint A Dead Man by Sarah Hall
You can vote for the book you want to win up until August 23. A shortlist of six will then be drawn up.
In the meantime, what do you make of the list? Read anything on it?
