As the 2010 Man Booker prize for fiction shortlist is announced, Claire Armitstead and Sarah Crown discuss the books that made it through to the final stage - and the surprise omissions.
The shortlist in full
Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (Faber and Faber)
Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut (Atlantic Books)
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (Bloomsbury)
The Long Song by Andrea Levy (Headline Review)
C by Tom McCarthy (Jonathan Cape – Random House)