The 2014 Man Booker short list, in case you don’t already know, goes like this:
Karen Joy Fowler We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Winner of the Not Published by Penguin Random House award; also: Best Use of a Review-Hampering Twist
[NOTE: the following title is not eligible for the Not Published by Penguin Random House award] Richard Flanagan Narrow Road to the Deep North. Best Historical Novel since A Town Like Alice.
[NOTE: the following title is not eligible for the Not Published by Penguin Random House award] Neel Mukherjee The Lives of Others. Best Indian novel since Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (see also last year’s shortlist). Also, Least Accurate Novelisation of a German Film
[NOTE: the following title is not eligible for the Not Published by Penguin Random House award] Howard Jacobson: J. Title that Makes the Greatest Concession to the Rise of Twitter
[NOTE: the following title is not eligible for the Not Published by Penguin Random House award] Joshua Ferris To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. Special prize for novelistic reinterpretation of Little Shop of Horrors, faithful to all original features bar the man eating plant and a cappella backing group.
Ali Smith: How to be Both. Best surviving novel from the long list. Seriously. Which means it should win the Man Booker, even though, in common with five of the six shortlisted titles, it’s not eligible for the Not Published by Penguin Random House award. Yes?
Yes?
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