Booker shortlist announced!

As follows:

The Sea by John Banville

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Accidental by Ali Smith,

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Ishiguro is the only one of the handful of veterans to make the longlist. Coetzee has already won the prize twice and has also been awarded the Nobel, so his ommission is not such a big deal (his new novel, Slow Man is receiving mixed reviews though Complete Review seems quite enthusiastic about it. I'll be picking it up shortly). Rushdie's too has been dividing critics, but hopefully the Nobel Academy will ignore the threats and just hand the prize over to him this year. Dan Jacobson looks destined to being a footnote in literary history, which is a shame.

As for the shortlisted titles, I am intrigued. The Banville looks quite interesting, as do the Ali Smith and the Barnes (which is the bookies' favourite to win). I'm definitely reading Ishiguro's novel. Zadie Smith, that photogenic darling of the literary set a few years back, has finally got a position on the shortlist, and has been in the news over some rather brazen comments about her native England.

Overall, a nice list.

Some fine reads, but don't stop here...

Well, it's about time I got into the swing of things. Now that I'm on holiday, I can afford to make a few updates ;)

There are few things I like better than lists: making them and reading them, and Al-Guardian's frequent "Top 10 books about ..." are always worth a look see. Their latest "Top 10 books that teach us something about southern Africa" by Zimbabwean novelist Ian Holding, is little more than a "Southern African Lit for Dummies" prescription, which is OK I guess - some great authors have emerged from that part of the world, and they deserve a wide audience. The two most famous, the Nobel laureates Nadine Gordimer and J.M Coetzee have works on the list, with Gordimer's execrable The Conservationist at no. 4 and Coetzee's masterpiece Disgrace topping the lot (and a good thing too). Elsewhere we have Achmat Dangor and Damon Galgut (both shortlisted for the Booker Prize for very good novels about life in post-Apartheid South Africa), Dorris Lessing, Andre Brink and a slew of Zimbabwean writers of whom I have read only one - Tsisti Dangaremba, whose Nervous Conditions is quite good, even if at times it reads like an anti-colonial tract more than a novel. Then again, these books are supposed to "teach", so...

In all, not a bad list for people wanting a taste of literature from southern Africa. You can't go wrong with the South African titles, at least - except perhaps the Gordimer. Just remember that there's more where this came from.