The Man Booker Prize 2012

Today we get one step closer to the Man Booker Prize--an award for the best book published in the Commonwealth in 2012, at least in the opinion of Sir Peter Stothard, Dinah Birch, Amanda Foreman, Dan Stevens, and Bharat Tandon, this year's judges. They confer today and announce a longlist of about a dozen books. On September 11, they'll announce a shortlist of about six books, and on October 16, they'll announce the winner, who gets £50,000. I don't have many predictions (I tend to use the Booker prize as a reading list), but I wouldn't be surprised if Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel makes it on the list this year.

I try to read all the books on the longlist (not necessarily before October 16--as some of the books may not even be published in the United States by that date). See 2011 (winner: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes) and 2010 (winner: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson) here. Other Booker-nominated books I've read can be found here. Booker-nominated books I have read but haven't reviewed include: Time's Arrow by Martin Amis (shortlisted, 1991), The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (winner, 2000), The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (winner, 2002), and On Beauty by Zadie Smith (shortlisted, 2005).

2012 Longlist (with UK/US availability in parenthesis)

The Yips by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate UK, Unknown US)
The Teleportation Accident by Ned Bowman (Sceptre UK, Bloomsbury US)
Philida by André Brink (Harvill Secker UK, Harvill Secker US)
Skios by Michael Frayn (Faber and Faber UK, Metropolitan US)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Doubleday UK, Random House US)
Communion Town by Sam Thompson (Fourth Estate UK, Unknown US)

2012 Shortlist

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon UK, Weinstein US)
Swimming Home by Deborah Levy (And Other Stories UK, And Other Stories US)
The Lighthouse by Alison Moore (Salt UK, Salt US)
Umbrella by Will Self (Bloomsbury UK, Grove US)
Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (Faber and Faber UK, Penguin US)

2012 Winner
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate UK, Henry Holt and Co US)