Fischer (1)

Take a few days off, and something or the other is guaranteed to crop up, even in the middle of August (traditionally a slow month in the publishing industry) that the rest of the blogosphere will link to long before the Babu gets off his, er, donkey.
Tibor Fischer files this year's obligatory Booker judge report:
"I can understand publishers putting out something unbrilliant out of loyalty to an author (admittedly unlikely) or putting it out because they've already paid for it, but I can't understand them sending it in to the Man Booker..."
And no one can accuse Tibor of ignoring the Big Issues:
Finally, judging isn't that hard. Only a few key questions ought to be weighed up. Is this novel written by a friend of mine? A good friend of mine? What could they do for me in the future? Would they deliver? Isn't this novel by that reviewer who panned my last book?"