THE shortlist.

So the Booker shortlist was announced today. This, of course, is a day of great joy if you are 1) an author who was shortlisted; 2) the parent of an author who was shortlisted; 3) the publisher of an author who was shortlisted; or, 4) someone who has committed to reading all the books on the shortlist and possibly the longlist as well if time allows, who isn't probably going to make the full longlist so at least now knows which ones are the "important" ones.

Last year and the year before I read all of the shortlisted books and it was good fun, so I decided to do it again this year. But then this year the panel decided to have a longlist of only 13 books (rather than the usual 18 or more), so I, like many other people with too much time on their hands and too much interest in this kind of thing, decided to try to go whole hog. I haven't done too badly (5 and a half as it stands today), but not up to professional standards, I imagine. So now I can at least get started on the shortlist (and I've already read one of them and I'm in the middle of the second--The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Gathering, respectively--woo hoo!). I should be able to make it by the 16th of October or whenever it is. Plus half of the shortlist are, well, short, so that should help me make up time...which is good because I haven't yet cracked the cover on Darkmans, the behemouth of a book clocking in at about 900 pages.