Fantasy Book Critic: The Man Booker 2009 Shortlist

Last week the 6 novel shortlist for the prestigious and lucrative UK based Man Booker literary award that honors work by Commonwealth citizens has been announced.

I presented the 13 novel Longlist in an earlier post and I am delighted that "The Children's Book by AS Byatt (FBC Review) made the cut since it is one of my two overall top novels of 2009 so far in terms of general quality, re-read value, sheer enjoyment and great characters.

The heavy favorite seems to be "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel which I intend to check out and possibly review here on US publication next month. I also read Sarah Waters offering "Little Stranger" (FBC Capsule Review) but I did not like it as much as her earlier "Fingersmith."

"Little Stranger" seems to be the bestselling novel on the list as the comments in the Guardian post announcing the shortlist imply. I also would like to try "The Glass Room" subject to availability.

Here is the list from the original Man Booker official announcement:

A S Byatt The Children's Book (Random House, Chatto and Windus)

J M Coetzee Summertime (Random House, Harvill Secker)

Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Random House, Jonathan Cape)

Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)

Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown)

Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Little, Brown, Virago)

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Note: From the Longlist, I also read "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin (FBC Review) and "How to Paint a Dead Man" by Sarah Hall (FBC Review tbp) and I loved both quite a lot so I was sad they did not make the cut.