Praise de lawd and pass de controversy

The Booker shortlist is out, and so are McEwan, Coetzee and Rushdie. Nice call on the last two, given the kind of talent on the longlist this year--but they dumped Saturday? Tch. Julian Barnes is widely seen as the frontrunner this year, but I'd say it's going to be a lot more even; the only book I haven't read yet on the list is John Banville's The Sea, but the rest are all high-calibre performances. The Guardian stuck its neck out and predicted a completely different list: here's what they said would make it, and here's the mea culpa.

The 2005 shortlist:


John Banville, The Sea

Julian Barnes, Arthur & George

Sebastian Barry, A Long Long Way

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Ali Smith, The Accidental

Zadie Smith, On Beauty.