So I've got this plan for next year... I want to read all the Booker shortlist nominees. As the time between the shortlist being announced and the winner being chosen is not nearly time enough for reading 6 or 7 novels, I'm going to start off as soon as the long list is announced. Wondering how I'll try to pick the shortlisters, but that'll be worked out sometime in 2006.
This was a bumper year for the Booker, which bleaks me out. There's no way next year will be as full of talent - when you've got Salman Rushdie (he of the fatwa), Ian McEwan (he of the stories of incest) and Kazuo Ishiguro (he of the poignant immigrant point-of-view) in one year, the next is bound to be crappy.
This year's winner has been slated quite badly as only having won as a result of a muddle - too many phenomenal entries, so a weak one wins, type affair. Although I'm all for the type of story, centred on personal grief and full of pleasant prose and emotional introspection what what what... I do feel that this was probably covered in Ishiguro's entry just as well (although I have yet to read Banville, and I doubt I actually will after this article).
To be honest I'm still leaning towards McEwan (am desperate to get a nice hardback copy of Saturday) and I have a little soft spot for Ishiguro. If you ever want to read something touching, Remains of the Day is the one.
So as soon as I'm done with the puffiness of yet another Dan Brown (the last one, thank the lord) I'm on to something meatier, and I think I may start with the punter's choice for the Booker this year, Barnes' Arthur & George. The fact that the final Booker choice came down to Banville and Ishiguro will have to be consolation for this year, I'm afraid. And the fact that Remains stole it in 1989 over another of Banville's novels will help too.
Right, back to more blather about pigtails and skirts.
This is a 
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