Best of Booker

The Man Booker Prize is approaching year 40 and to celebrate, the Man Booker judges are picking the best of the prize winners so far. One of the oddsmakers have an interesting take with Life of Pi with the greatest chances, followed by Midnight's Children and The English Patient. This is a mixed bag, with one of the easiest to read followed by two of the densest. Ladbrokes says no way, its Midnight's Children, Sacred Hunger and the Blind Assassin. I am rooting for Margaret Atwood, partly for loving the books and partly because I like to see science fiction win. You can read Atwood's defense of science fiction here.

My true hope is that JG Farrell's the Siege of Krishnapur. Set in the Great Mutiny (or if you prefer the First War of Indian Independence,) the book is at once a thrilling story and an exploration of the colonial mindset.

I think a much more fun Prize would be the making up for past errors prize. That is to say, which book should have won the Booker, but didn't. I would say that Oryx and Crake was robbed in 2003, but Atwood had won two years previously, so that might be overlooked. Despite quite liking the Line of Beauty, I think the Cloud Atlas is the better book.