Man Booker Prize and German Book Prize Shortlists Announced

The book prize season is hotting up once again, so time for an update

The Man Booker Prize

As the title of this blog indicates it was originally set up to track my views of the Man Booker Prize. Whether that be reading and commenting on the novels shortlisted from the inaugural prize in 1969 or longlisted novels (once they moved to that format) in more recent years. As regular visitors to this blog would know, the enchantment of a Prize for “any full-length novel, written by a citizen of the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland or Zimbabwe” has disappeared with the changes this year allowing works written in English. As there are a plethora of awards for this type of novel I have moved away from the Man Booker Prize and am now looking at works from around the globe. I the past I would have devoured the longlist, posted my thoughts and predicted a winner, this year I haven’t read a single work from the list. That decision does not stop the media behemoth that the Booker has become though. SO here are the six shortlisted novels for the 2014 Prize.

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour – Joshua Ferris

The Narrow Road to the Deep North – Richard Flanagan

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves – Karen Joy Fowler

J – Howard Jacobson

The Lives of Others – Neel Mukherjee

How to be Both – Ali Smith

The German Book Prize

Yesterday the judges announced the shortlist for the German Book Prize, an award I may cover (if the works are available in English of course!!!). The shortlisted works are:

Pfaueninsel – Thomas Hettche

April – Angelika Klussendorf

Panischer Fruhling – Gertrud Leutenegger

3000 Euro – Thomas Melle

Kruso – Lutz Seiler

Der Allesforscher – Heinrich Steinfest