Hilary Mantel's much-fancied Wolf Hall sits proudly atop the bookmakers' odds after this morning's announcement of the shortlist for the 2009 Man Booker prize. She is joined on the list by the other two longlisted grandes dames, AS Byatt (back for a shot at a second title with The Children's Book) and Sarah Waters, hoping to make it past the shortlist stage this time with The Little Stranger. The other big-hitter on the shortlist, JM Coetzee, would be the first author ever to win a Booker hat-trick if he emerges the winner. The two outsiders who've made the list, meanwhile, are Adam Foulds for The Quickening Maze, and Simon Mawer for The Glass Room. Notable omissions, meanwhile, are Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn, which was heavily backed to go through to the shortlist stage, and William Trevor's Love and Summer.
Of the six shortlisted books, I've read four - Waters, Byatt, Mantel and Foulds, and out of those, I'd say Mantel is streets ahead. Wolf Hall is one of the best books I've read in ages - rich, strange, pungent; heavily embroidered, like a gorgeous 16th-century tapestry. Those who've read The Glass Room on the books desk, meanwhile, are very impressed; I've already ordered my copy. Off now to debate the omission of Tóibín (I thought it was too attenuated to be really great, and think it was justly left off) on the podcast, so it's over to you: what did you think?
