Booker Prize update
Somewhere or other in the middle of the 10'o'clock News the BBC managed to announce the winner of this year's Booker prize. There were a few seconds of exultant hope before the announcement itself, in which I imagined the words 'Nicola Barker, Darkmans', and 'Indra Sinha, Animal's People' being spoken, but they were soon shattered, as the judges pronounced the winner to be Anne Enright's The Gathering. On all of the occasions when I've read all of the shortlisted books I have never, never, never agreed with the final decision of the judges, and this year is no different.
I'd made a little pact with myself that I would re-read The Gathering if it won the Booker, because I do think that I under appreciated it on a first 
reading. I will hold myself to that. I will also hold onto the sense of pleasure I have that neither Mister Pip or On Chesil Beach won - not because I liked them less than the winner, but because at least this result means that the bookies haven't got the literary world pegged, and the winner of a literary prize can't be forecasted by measuring popularity and sales.
Becca
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