Booker Prize Finalists

I feel a little better about my struggle with Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath her Feet. The Booker Prize selection committee left his most recent and better reviewed book, The Enchantress of Florence off their short list.

The New York Times describes the five finalists:

“The White Tiger” by Mr. Adiga is the dark story of class struggle told by an Indian man who murders his employer. It was published in the United States by Free Press. Mr. Adiga, 33, a native of India who spent part of his childhood in Australia, is a former correspondent for Time magazine in India.

“The Secret Scripture” by Sebastian Barry, published in the United States by Viking Adult, tells of an elderly woman and her psychiatrist who write parallel accounts of their meetings and their tragic pasts in modern-day Ireland. Mr. Barry, 53, was born in Dublin and has been shortlisted once before.

“Sea of Poppies” by Amitav Ghosh, to be published in the United States next month by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is set at the brink of the Opium Wars and tells of a ship full of sailors, Indians and Westerners, who form a bond and begin a long-lasting dynasty. Mr. Ghosh, 52, grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, and wrote “The Glass Palace.”

“The Clothes on Their Backs,” written by Linda Grant and published in Britain by Virago Press, is the story of family and morality told by a narrator who was raised by Jewish refugees from Hungary. Ms. Grant, 57, was born in Liverpool and lives in London.

“The Northern Clemency” by Philip Hensher tells of the ties between two families who live in Sheffield in the 1970s and ’80s. It was published in Britain by Fourth Estate and is scheduled to be published in February by Alfred A. Knopf. Mr. Hensher, 43, is the author of five novels and a collection of short stories.

“A Fraction of the Whole,” by Mr. Toltz, was published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau. It tells of a son whose attempt to understand his dead father takes him from Paris cafes to the Thai jungle to the Australian bush. Mr. Toltz, 36, was born in Australia, but has since lived in Montreal, Vancouver, Barcelona and Paris.

It feels so much better to post on this than on the Vice Presidential race.