Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, the most talked about young author since Alex Garland, is the early favourite for the new Guardian First Book Award after topping the polls of all our reading groups.
The groups, based at Borders bookshops in Brighton, Glasgow, London and Leeds, all gave their highest vote for Mitchell's book, which weaves together nine stories of loves and lives from the edges of Europe and Asia.
It is the first time the ordinary reading public have been involved in the selection of a major literary prize.
Mitchell, 30, who is from Southport and teaches English in Hiroshima, was a star of this year's Word festival in London.
Overall, fiction scored better with readers, though the New Yorker journalist Philip Gourevitch's harrowing account of the Rwandan genocide, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, was the groups' second favourite.
Three other British-born authors also made the shortlist: Daren King for Boxy an Star, Bella Bathurst for The Lighthouse Stevensons and the Guardian journalist Gary Younge for No Place like Home? The sixth writer on the shortlist is the Calcutta-based Raj Kamal Jha, for The Blue Bedspread.
The shortlist will now go to the panel of judges for the final decision. The winner will be announced on December 2.
