It’s prize season and announcements are coming fast. Yesterday the Man Booker Prize Shortlist was announced. The six shortlisted books were chosen from a longlist of 19 and are:

Kiran Desai – The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton)

Kate Grenville – The Secret River (Canongate)

M.J. Hyland – Carry Me Down (Canongate)

Hisham Matar – In the Country of Men (Viking)

Edward St Aubyn – Mother’s Milk (Picador)

Sarah Waters – The Night Watch (Virago)

From the press release:

Hermione Lee, Chair of Judges, comments:
“Each of these novels has what we as judges were most looking for, a distinctive original voice, an audacious imagination that takes readers to undiscovered countries of the mind, a strong power of story-telling and a historical truthfulness. Each of these novels creates a world you inhabit without question or distrust while you are reading, and a mood, an atmosphere, which lasts long after the reading is over.”

The winner will be announced on Tuesday 10th October at an awards ceremony at the Guildhall, London.

This isn’t the shortlist I would have picked however, all sound like fascinating reads. I’m still planning to read a few of the longlist titles, and The Secret River by Kate Grenville, prior to the announcement of the winner (Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson; Get a Life by Nadine Gordimer; and Theft by Peter Carey).

What title are you most disappointed to find was left off the shortlist?