This year’s Man Booker dozen might be dominated by Americans but the biggest names in US literature are notable for their absence.
Neither Jonathan “Great American Novelist” Franzen nor the writer behind the biggest publishing sensation of the century, Harper Lee, whose follow up to To Kill A Mockingbird came out earlier this month, are included.
Meanwhile Man Booker darlings Kazuo Ishiguro and Margaret Atwood are omitted despite both having recent novels that fall within the criteria and have been critically well received.
Other established names who might have expected a spot alongside other literati include Kate Atkinson, Pat Barker, Clive James and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk.
Sarah Hall and Nell Zink might be lesser-known but their new works have been published to such fanfare it seems quite surprising they aren't included.
So, while we applaud this year’s Booker Prize Longlist for its diversity and the number of new writers, here’s an alternative dozen you might consider adding to your reading list.
Alternative Man Booker Longlist 2015
Jonathan Franzen’s Purity
Pat Barker’s Noonday
Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman
Clive James’s Latest Readings
Orhan Pamuk’s A Strangeness in my Mind
Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last
William Boyd’s Sweet Caress
Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant
Michel Houellebecq’s Submission
Elena Ferrante’s Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
Sarah Hall’s The Wolf Border
Nell Zink’s The Wallcreeper
Kate Atkinson’s God in Ruins
