Man Booker Shortlist Announced

The shortlist for the 2009 Man Booker award was announced in London today. The six books selected, from a longlist of 13, were:

• The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt (Random House, Chatto and Windus)
• Summertime by J.M. Coetzee (Random House, Harvill Secker)
• The Quickening Maze by Adam Fould (Random House, Jonathan Cape)
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
• The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (Little, Brown)
• The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Little, Brown, Virago)

“We’re thrilled to be able to announce such a strong shortlist,” said Jim Naughtie, chair of the 2009 judging panel, “so enticing that it will certainly give us a headache when we come to select the winner. The choice will be a difficult one. There is thundering narrative, great inventiveness, poetry and sharp human insight in abundance.”

The Man Booker Prize Web site is here. Meanwhile, yesterday UK publisher Faber and Faber announced that they will be offering readers to win commemorative editions of the shortlisted books here.