Booker Longlist

Each year I try to read a book that has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in an attempt to read more contemporary literature. While I mostly fail, I've read "The Inheritance of Loss" (K. Desai), "The Life of Pi" (Martel), and The Line of Beauty (Hollinghurst) in recent years, and though they've all been well-written and thought-provoking, they fall short of brilliance.

I haven't read any of the 18 books on this year's longlist, and only "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid and "On Chesil Beach" by Ian McEwan have come across my radar, though the reviews of the latter have been less than stellar. Four of the authors on the list are first-time novelists, and few others are ubiquitous, meaning that this year's Booker Prize judges may have unearthed some strong new talent.