Booker prize shortlisted authors (clockwise): Andrea Levy, Howard Jacobson, Tom McCarthy, Peter Carey, Emma Donoghue and Damon Galgut. Photograph: PR/Eamonn McCabe/Sarah Lee (Guardian)
The Booker prize shortlist was announced yesterday:
Andrea Levy, The Long Son
Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question
Tom McCarthy, C
Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America
Emma Donoghue, Room
Damon Galgut, In a Strange Room
This year, I haven’t read any of them. The only one that I’ve paid any attention to (and that only in an If I see that at the library, must remember to pick it up kind of way) is Parrot and Olivier in America. The others, that is, the ones I know anything about, sound as though they would be rather claustrophobic and tense-making.
I like a novel that sprawls, I like an epic canvas. That’s just my particular preference. I know others like different things.
So what’s your take on these novels? Anything you’re looking forward to? Anything you’ve read?
Nicola Griffith 
I love Emma Donoghue but didn't think Room was even out yet (but maybe that's just over here). But what I read about it didn't make me want to read it, particularly. Yeah, talk about claustrophobic.
Elaine, Room will be published in the US in five days.
Interesting group of noms this year. Seems as if we've turned a corner (of sorts). The whole lot of us, society, writers/artists, readers. I wonder what is truly going on? Not only these awards but popularity is going to stories filled with stark aggression and violence and with the powersthatbe selling it as action and intrigue. What?
I heard Emma Donohue read (The Sealed Letter) a few years ago and she was terrific – really funny and tender and smart. It's one of the best readings I've ever been to. I don't know anything about Room, but I'd read it just because she wrote it.