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The Man Booker Prize longlist announced

The Man Booker Prize longlist announced

Judges for the 2010 Man Booker Prize announced their longlisted titles on 27 July and we are delighted to see that three of our titles made the cut:

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut

A total of 138 books, 14 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the 'Man Booker Dozen' longlist of 13 books.

The shortlist will be revealed in September, and the winner of this prestigious prize will be announced on 12 October.

More about the Man Booker Prize



Spotlight:

The Botticelli Secret

by Marina Fiorato

A young woman in 15th-century Italy must flee for her life after stumbling upon a deadly secret when she serves as a model for Botticelli in this rip-roaring romantic adventure.


Spotlight:

Good Oil

by Laura Buzo

Reminiscent of Looking for Alibrandi, this bittersweet story of first love and second thoughts will capture your heart and make you laugh.


Spotlight:

The Ninth

by Harvey Sachs

An absorbing look at Beethoven's towering Ninth Symphony, and its vibrant historical context.

Out now
Coming soon

Spotlight:

A Merciless Place

by Emma Christopher


Spotlight:

Johnny Lewis: The biography

by Paul Kent


Spotlight:

In the Company of Angels

by Thomas E. Kennedy

How much of a survivor, in fact, survives? How much must remain of a survivor for him also to be called a man? You tell me to remember. All over again. To remember. Perhaps there is nothing left there, doctor. Perhaps it is all gone.
Bernardo Greene is attempting to rebuild his life. Imprisoned and tortured by Pinochet's regime for introducing his students to political poetry, he has arrived at Copenhagen's centre for rehabilitating torture victims at the age of forty-nine, to begin, to begin again. Across from the King's Garden, Michela Ibsen also seeks a new beginning. She has survived an abusive marriage and the death of a child, but does not know whether this makes her strong, or even whole. Her latest boyfriend is young, vain and dangerously possessive. Why do men hit me? Why is it happening again?
Michela's eyes meet Bernardo's over a cup of coffee in the cafe across the lake. During a long Scandinavian summer of endless days and pin-point nights, these two lost souls begin to heal, to forgive and to trust themselves to love.
A novel about passion in the wake of loss, pain in the wake of truth, and salvation in the wake of despair, In the Company of Angels is the mesmeric and quietly devastating masterpiece from an internationally celebrated author.


Spotlight:

How Did You Get This Number

by Sloane Crosley

What happens when the minibus full of your fellow wedding travellers hits a bear in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness? Or you hear the voice of your high school's long-lost queen bee from a bathroom cubicle? For Sloane Crosley, these are the kind of transformative experiences that define our daily struggle to connect, however reluctantly, to our fellow man. From a lonely excursion to a Lisbon cafe to the sometimes disorienting experience of emerging from a New York subway, the essays in How Did You Get This Number take the reader on a series of journeys as Sloane Crosley's seeks a kind of instruction manual to navigate the difficult journeys of adulthood.


Spotlight:

India Dark

by Kirsty Murray

Daisy opened her mouth and lies flew out. Her face so pink and white, her lips so plump and sweet, her lies so vile. I had to cover my ears.
I shut my eyes, wanting to block out the courtroom, to neither see nor hear the evil: but Tilly grabbed my arm and twisted the skin on my wrist in a Chinese burn.
'Poesy Swift,' she whispered, her breath hot against my neck, 'open your eyes, and take that look off your face. We will never get home if you ruin everything.'
Madras 1910: a troupe of child performers are stranded, having staged a strike against their manager. Their fate now depends on the outcome of a court case, and an alliance with gentlemen of the British Raj.
Based on a true story, India Dark recreates shifting friendships and loyalties and the clash of innocence versus experience against the backdrop of India's seductive mysteries.


Spotlight:

Utopian Man

by Lisa Lang

'Really impressive, vivid and enjoyable.' Cate Kennedy
It's the 1880s and Marvellous Melbourne is a lavish and raucous city where anything could happen. Eccentric entrepreneur Edward William Cole is building the sprawling Cole's Book Arcade and filling it with whatever amuses him, or supports his favourite causes: a giant squid, a brass band, monkeys, a black man whose skin has turned white, a Chinese tea salon, and of course, hundreds of thousands of books.
When Edward decides to marry he advertises for a wife in the newspaper, shocking and titillating the whole town. To everyone's surprise he marries his broadsheet bride and the Arcade grows into a monumental success.
But the 1890s depression hits Melbourne - and Edwar - hard, and the death of one of his children leaves him reeling. Grief, corruption and a beautiful, unscrupulous widow all threaten to derail his singular vision. But it's not until he visits Chinatown one nigh - and his own deeply suppressed pas - that the idealist faces his toughest challenge.
Utopian Man is the story of a man who lives life on his own terms, and leaves behind a remarkable legacy.


Spotlight:

Night Street

by Kristel Thornell

Night Street is the passionate story of a young painter, Clarice Beckett, who defies society's strict conventions and indifferent art critics alike and leads an intense private and professional life. With her extraordinary talent for making simple city and seascapes haunting and mysteriously revelatory, Clarice paints prolifically and lives largely, overcoming the seemingly confined existence as the spinster daughter in the parental home.
Night Street began with Thornell's first encounter with the paintings of Melbourne artist Clarice Beckett (1887-1935) at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The subtle power of Clarice's highly atmospheric, enigmatic landscapes enabled her to imagine Clarice's inner life and shape an extraordinary novel.


Spotlight:

Puzzled

by David Astle

'I used to regret not being born Catholic because it meant I'd been denied the joys of self-flagellation. Then I discovered DA and he solved my problem.' Bill Leak, cartoonist, and anagram of Killable
'He's the Sergeant Pepper of cryptic crosswords. A complete mindf**k.' Geoffrey Rush, actor, and anagram of Gruffy Heroes
Many a puzzle solver has battled against the devilish mind of long-time crossword maker and wordaholic David Astle, known to many as DA.
In Puzzled he holds out a helping hand to the lost and perplexed taking us on a personal tour into the secret life of words. Clue by clue, chapter by chapter, we step through a central puzzle, uncovering and unravelling word-secrets as we go. The Steve Irwin Fluke, the Swastika Accident, the Abracadabra Pyramid - hidden meanings, anagrams, reversals - all the Dark Arts are finally revealed.
More than a how-to manual, more than a memoir, Puzzled enlightens us about cryptics and delights in the quirky realm of wordplay. It is a book for word junkies everywhere.


Spotlight:

Lights Out in Wonderland

by DBC Pierre

Gabriel Brockwell, aesthete, poet, philosopher, disaffected twenty-something decadent, is thinking terminal. His philosophical enquiries, the abstractions he indulges, and how these relate to a life lived, all point in the same direction. His destination is Wonderland. The nature and style of the journey is all that's to be decided.
Taking in London, Tokyo and Berlin, Lights Out In Wonderland documents Gabriel Brockwell's remarkable global odyssey. Committed to the pursuit of pleasure and in search of the Bacchanal to obliterate all previous parties, Gabriel's adventure takes in a spell in rehab, a near-death experience with fugu ovaries, a sexual encounter with an octopus, and finally an orgiastic feast in the bowels of Berlin's majestic Tempelhof Airport. Along the way we see a character disintegrate and re-shape before our eyes.
Lights Out In Wonderland carries you through its many corridors of delight and horror on the back of Gabriel's voice, which is at once skeptical, idealistic, broken and optimistic. An allegorical banquet and a sly commentary on these End Times and the march towards insensate banality, DBC Pierre's third novel completes a loose trilogy of fictions, each of which stands alone as a joyful expression of the human spirit.


Spotlight:

Dogs At War

by Graeme Hughes

For the past ten years the Canterbury-Bankstown Rugby League Club (the Bulldogs) has reeled from one crisis to the next. Once known as the 'Family Club' and the 'Entertainers', the Bulldogs have since figured in many off-field dramas including rape allegations, executive reshuffles and rorting the salary cap.
Three families have dominated the club in the past thirty years - The Moores - whose patriach was long-time club boss Peter 'Bullfrog' Moore who ran the club with an iron fist and whose sons-in-law include several former players like recent coach Steve Folkes and previous coach Chris Anderson. The Mortimer brothers - Steve, Peter and Chris - and The Hughes Brothers - Graeme, Garry and Mark - nephews of Peter Moore.
How did the club disintegrate and lose its way?
Graeme Hughes autobiographically walks us through his first associations with the Bulldogs culminating in the great Grand Final win of 1980 in which he played. Then we follow the Bulldogs' fortunes through Graeme and his brothers' official roles with the club and Graeme as TV sportcaster. The death of Peter 'Bullfrog' Moore was a key turning point and soon bastardry, disintegration and the scandal cited above dominated the club.