It has been extraordinary watching the reaction to the announcement of the longlist for what is still familiarly known as the Orange Prize (its mum insists on it being known by its full name of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction). Words like "shock" and "surprise" have been banded around to describe the decisions reached by five worried-looking women in their 40s, of which I am one, determined to do their very best by the 150-odd novels entered for the competition, which is open to any woman writing in English. Unlike the Man Booker and the Costa (formerly the Whitbread) there are no glamorous faces - an actress who went to Oxford, a TV host who is known as a bit of a reader - parachuted in to bulk out the panel of critics and writers who make up the judging panel. Instead, a fortnight ago we all travelled to central London, heads stuffed full of months of reading, and bags weighed down with files of notes.
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