The 2010 Man Booker Prize winner is:The following are the 2010 shortlist finalists:
From the two-time Booker Prize-winning author: an irrepressible, audacious, trenchantly funny new novel set in the 19th century and inspired in part by the life of Alexis de Tocqueville. With dazzling exuberance and all the richness of characterization, story, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer, Peter Carey explores the birth of democracy, the limits of friendship and whether people really can remake themselves in a New World. The two men at the heart of the novel couldn't be any more different: Olivier is the son of French aristocrats who (barely) survived the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerate English printer. But when young Parrot is separated from his father (after a stupendous conflagration at a house of forgery) he runs into the powerful embrace of a one-armed marquis who will be his conduit — like it or not — into a life as closely (mis)allied with Olivier's as if they were connected by blood. And when Olivier sets sail for America — ostensibly to make a study of the American penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from the latest guillotineurs — Parrot, unable to loosen the Marquis's grip, is there too: as spy, scribe, comptroller, protector, foe and foil. As the narrative unfurls, shifting between the perspectives of Olivier and Parrot, between their picaresque adventures apart and together, in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new lands — a most unlikely friendship begins to take hold.
RoomNarrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful--and attempts a nail-biting escape.
Damon GalgutIn a Strange Room
A young man named Damon takes three journeys, through Greece, India, and Africa. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers, and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover, and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life. A book of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion,In a Strange Roomis the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man's search for love and a place to call home.
A young man named Damon takes three journeys, through Greece, India, and Africa. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers, and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover, and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life. A book of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion,In a Strange Roomis the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man's search for love and a place to call home.
Andrea LevyThe Long Song
A tale of freedom and love, set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed. July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation called Amity and it is her life that is the subject of this tale. But there are many more persona besides - far too many to be listed here. What befalls them all is carefully chronicled in this thrilling journey.
A tale of freedom and love, set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed. July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation called Amity and it is her life that is the subject of this tale. But there are many more persona besides - far too many to be listed here. What befalls them all is carefully chronicled in this thrilling journey.
C
An epochal saga from the acclaimed author of Remainder,C takes place in the early years of the twentieth century and ranges from western England to Europe to North Africa. Serge Carrefax spends his childhood at Versoie House, where his father teaches deaf children to speak when he's not experimenting with wireless telegraphy. Sophie, Serge's sister and only connection to the world at large, takes outrageous liberties with Serge's young body - which may explain the unusual sexual predilections that haunt him for the rest of his life. After recuperating from a mysterious illness at a Bohemian spa, Serge serves in World War I as a radio operator.Cculminates in a bizarre scene in an Egyptian catacomb where all Serge's paths and relationships at last converge. Tom McCarthy's mesmerizing, often hilarious accomplishment effortlessly blends the generational breadth of Ian McEwan with the postmodern wit of Thomas Pynchon and marks a writer rapidly becoming one of the most significant and original voices of his generation.
An epochal saga from the acclaimed author of Remainder,C takes place in the early years of the twentieth century and ranges from western England to Europe to North Africa. Serge Carrefax spends his childhood at Versoie House, where his father teaches deaf children to speak when he's not experimenting with wireless telegraphy. Sophie, Serge's sister and only connection to the world at large, takes outrageous liberties with Serge's young body - which may explain the unusual sexual predilections that haunt him for the rest of his life. After recuperating from a mysterious illness at a Bohemian spa, Serge serves in World War I as a radio operator.Cculminates in a bizarre scene in an Egyptian catacomb where all Serge's paths and relationships at last converge. Tom McCarthy's mesmerizing, often hilarious accomplishment effortlessly blends the generational breadth of Ian McEwan with the postmodern wit of Thomas Pynchon and marks a writer rapidly becoming one of the most significant and original voices of his generation.
