Man Booker Longlist

The longlist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction was announced yesterday, 28th July. Chair of the judging panel James Naughtie said, “We believe it to be one of the strongest lists in recent memory, with two former winners, four past-shortlisted writers, three first-time novelists and a span of styles and themes that make this an outstandingly rich fictional mix.”

But what did the critics make of the books on the list? Click on the titles to find out:

A S Byatt The Children’s Book (Chatto)

J M Coetzee Summertime (Harvill Secker)

Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Jonathan Cape)

Sarah Hall How to Paint a Dead Man (Faber)

Samantha Harvey The Wilderness (Jonathan Cape)

James Lever Me Cheeta (Fourth Estate)

Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate)

Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown)

Ed O’Loughlin Not Untrue & Not Unkind (Penguin – Ireland)

James Scudamore Heliopolis (Harvill Secker)

Colm Toibin Brooklyn (Viking)

William Trevor Love and Summer (Viking)

Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Virago)

The shortlist will be announced on 8th September; the winner on 6th October.