Reading the Man Booker list

I read a lot, but always found walking into a bookshop a bewildering experience because there were just too many choices to make.

This situation changed while on a holiday in Italy. I had a few days to fill and with high heats outside, I needed a book to fill in the long afternoon siesta in the refuge of my air-conditioned room. Being Italy, there was only a limited choice of books in English. I found a selection of three interesting books, took them back to my room, and couldn't put them down.

I don't know whether it was happenstance that all three books were either winners of or shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, but my curiousity was aroused. Given that all three books I had just read were excellent, I had to be on to something.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction started as the Booker McConnell Prize in 1968, set up by the company of the same name. It is a literary prize that is awarded once a year to the best original full-length novel, written in English by a citizen of the Commonwealth, Ireland or Zimbabwe. In 2002 the Booker Prize Foundation took over, sponsored by the Man Group. Each year they select a longlist, which is then narrowed down to a shortlist of between four and seven novels, from which they select a winner.

I have now read thirteen winning or shortlisted novels of the Man Booker Prize, with the oldest so far being from the 2001 list. I have yet to strike a novel that hasn't been a good read, with some of them so gripping that all else in my life has been sidelined until the novel was finished. One or two left me a little undecided, and as I intend to review them as I finish them, you'll soon find out why.

Never again will I have to suffer indecision as I enter a bookshop (or shop for a book online). I have my list of Man Booker prizewinners handy, and my decision is made. With nearly 300 books in the list so far, it should keep me busy for a while.