All public nominating and voting is done via comments on the Guardian Blog Post in cause and requires free login and I suggest everyone heads there for great ideas about books as well as nominate/vote if they have a favorite that satisfies the eligbility rules.

The eligibility rules are the same as for the Booker, so generally they are encapsulated below plus some extra fine print which can be found in the full rules linked above:

"6.Only publications eligible for the 2009 Booker prize are eligible for the Competition. Which is to say, broadly speaking, novels published for the first time in English between 1 October 2008 and 30 September 2009, written by Commonwealth citizens."

I nominated "Spirit" by Gwyneth Jones (FBC rv) while my second preference is "White is for Witching" by Helen Oyeyemi (FBC rv) and my third is "The Quiet War" by Paul McAuley (FBC Rv) both nominated also for "Not the Booker" and I plan to vote for "Spirit" unless one of the other two drums a lot of support before I vote so I add my vote to increase their chance of making the shortlist.

So go and check out "Not the Booker" and nominate and vote!!!




Regarding the actual Booker longlist it contains one novel of great interest for me: AS Byatt' "The Children's Book" which I have just ordered from the Book Depository not being able to wait for its US release in October and which I plan to review here asap.

I read and reviewed in a capsule another nominee "Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters (FBC Capsule Rv) of which I loved the style but disliked a lot the way the story went, especially the main characters which seemed "dumb in the novel requires it" way that I dislike a lot.

Another novel of interest is Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" though its subject of Henry VIII, the Boleyns and the rupture with Rome is much less of interest to me than the French Revolution about which Ms. Mantel has written a novel that I enjoyed a lot many years ago on publication: "A Place of Greater Safety". So I will await the US October publication to check it out and see if I want to read it.

I am also interested in checking out "Heliopolis" by James Scudamore, "The Glass Room" (out of print as far as I can see) by Simon Mawer and "How to Paint a Dead Man" by Sarah Hall if/when they are released here in the US and I can browse through them.


Edit later: I will link this post to the Essay Index and update it with the link to the candidates for the "Not the Booker" shortlist and all relevant information.