The Best Of The Rest Of The Booker: The Public Vote

Our esteemed panel have spoken and between them come up with a list of 10 novels that should have won the Booker Prize but didn't.  It is now up to you to vote for a winner.  If you have no idea what I am going on about click here for some background.

The poll will stay open until the 9th July and the winner will be announced on the morning of the 10th.  Later that day the actual Best of the Booker is awarded and we'd hate to steal its thunder. 

500 people a day visit this site and it would be great if a decent chunk of you could vote.  It is meant to be a bit of fun and I'd love you to join in. Oh, and tell your friends, link to this post, spread the word. It would be great to get as many people participating as possible.

And the prize?  I will bake a cake for the winner.  Assuming they are still alive, of course.  And are prepared to accept a cake from me.  Lemon drizzle is my speciality but I can be flexible on that.  One of them is bound to be allergic to something.

Once you have voted feel free to comment and let us know which one you plumped for.  Or if you think we've got the shortlist completely wrong then grumble and moan, no one will mind.

poll by twiigs.com

Comments

[DJ Kirkby]

I have voted but it was such a struggle to choose just one. Will go back to mine now and put up a link back to this post.

[John Self]

Are these titles listed in ranking order Scott? I guess I was the only judge to nominate Brian Moore's The Doctor's Wife then!

[Angie]

Touch choice, but it's got to be Cloud Atlas.

[Angie]

Touch choice, but it's got to be Cloud Atlas.

[Lucy Diamond]

Tricky one. I voted for Cloud Atlas too because I thought it was so stunningly original and unique. The only novel I've read in years that actually made me want to write an A-level-style essay about its brilliance!

[John Self]

Oh and I voted for Colm Toibin's The Master. 2004 was a damn good year for the Booker, with Mitchell, Hollinghurst, Toibin, and Gerard Woodward's magnificent I'll Go to Bed at Noon. Any of them would have been a worthy winner (in fact three of them might have been a more worthy winner than the one that did clinch it).

Furthermore, in my ongoing promotion of the fine and overlooked works of Brian Moore, I have to point out that after being shortlisted for the prize in 1976 for The Doctor's Wife, the book was ruled out of contention by one of the judges, Mary Wilson, on the grounds of its explicit sexual content. And if that hasn't piqued your interest, nothing will.

[Scott Pack]

John, I will be posting up a few bits and pieces related to the shortlist in the coming days, such as the books just outside the 10, books that only received one vote and so on.

[Angie]

Wierd, I didn't actually post two identical comments, but it looks like I did! Did I mention I voted for Cloud Atlas? :)

[dan]

It's a good list with only Mills standing out as being not of the same quality. I would have put Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance on there instead.

Shall enjoy weighing up the relative merits of these.

[Exmoorjane]

Cloud Atlas by a mile (though some other great books here)....his writing is unique and he's probably the only author I actually read slowly - because I can't bear to miss a single perfect sentence. I still can't believe it didn't win. Wrong. Just wrong.

[iain mullen]

Tough choice, looks like Cloud Atlas by a country mile. Was hoping to see A long long way on yer list, but how and ever, Butcher Boy for me by a nose from Cloud Atlas, with McGahern a close 3rd. I love this shit!!

[iain mullen]

Tough choice, looks like Cloud Atlas by a country mile. Was hoping to see A long long way on yer list, but how and ever, Butcher Boy for me by a nose from Cloud Atlas, with McGahern a close 3rd. I love this shit!!

[Caroline]

Cloud Atlas is breathtaking and gets my vote. With Fingersmith by Sarah Waters a worthy runner up.

[Lynne Rees]

Cloud Atlas, because I've never approached a book with as much cynicism (hmmm, how can he call this a 'novel') and been so completely won over, by the form, and the writing. And also, in retrospect, it is such a deep pleasure to feel so involved with a story and its characters that you forget completely about the author.

[Sally Z]

Cloud Atlas(Is this getting to be a habit?)because of the way the form never gets in the way of the narrative although they oh so cleverly interreact with each other. I never thought I could read sustained lengths of 'futurespeak' and not only understand them but enjoy them hugely.

I also enjoyed Atonement (before the film was a twinkle in the director's eye) and Fingersmith. But in the end it just has to be Cloud Atlas.

[alex]

I've gone for Magnus Mills, a cracking and unique read that's not overwritten, not tricksy, not too lah-de-literary-dah, and absolutely compelling. Missed off the list - Tibor Fischer's Under The Frog which I think is really terrific and Michael Frayn's Headlong.

[womagwriter]

Cloud Atlas, definitely. Can't say I've read all of the others on this list, though I might start working my way through them, but Cloud Atlas is the most stunningly brilliant book I've ever read, ever, so I'm pretty certain it would still be my favourite after reading the rest of this shortlist. How it didn't win the Booker I'll never understand.

[John Self]

My own feeling is that Cloud Atlas didn't win because brilliant as it is, in the end the whole didn't make more than the sum of the parts. The textual onionskin structure aside, the elements didn't have enough to link them other than the overall theme of subjugation and the slightly pointless motif of a crescent-shaped birthmark. And I couldn't get along at all with "Sloosha's Crossin' and Everythin' After" or indeed "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing." But brilliantly written otherwise.

The other reason is that it was up against some very brilliant books that year (2004), probably the strongest shortlist in recent years.

Womagwriter has just commented that she hasn't read all the others, and I was about to blush with embarrassment as I too voted without having read them all... then I checked and realised I have read them all. Phew, honour is satisfied! (Well, I have read them all if starting Graham Bloody Swift's Waterland three times and never being able to finish the damn thing counts.)

[womagwriter]

'Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies' - from the very end of the Sloosha's Crossing section. That's what ties the whole novel together, and to my mind, makes it far, far more than the sum of its parts.

[Clare D]

Difficult one - but Swift's WATERLAND got my vote...sorry John!

[Clare D]

Difficult one - but Swift's WATERLAND got my vote...sorry John!

[Jenny]

Have just blogged about at greater length, but from this list my vote would go to either Never Let Me Go or The Master.

no stephen king?

[JMW]

Butcher Boy is a great book, and one that didn't spring to mind, but I went with Atonement -- I think it might be the best novel of the last 25 years, so...

I really hope giving it to McEwan for Amsterdam three years earlier didn't influence the jury's decision, because I agree with Scott that Amsterdam was undeserving.

[Adrian]

I wrote about this on my blog a bit ago, but of my shortlisted favourites "Illywhacker", "The Handmaid's Tale", "The Good Terrorist," "Earthly Powers," "Utz", "A Long, Long Way" didn't make your list either! which leaves me with "Atonement" and "Cloud Atlas". Has to be David Mitchell then since "Atonement", though better than "Amsterdam" is a little too nostalgic for me. Seems your reviewers have a short memory, too many recent novels for my taste. But good to see a world beyond "Midnight's Children".

[John Self]

Adrian, as one of the 'judges' it's not so much that I have a short memory as that most of the shortlisted books I've read have been from recent years. I was -4 years old when the Booker began, and only really started reading Booker-type books in the early 1990s, so it's inevitable that my choices were going to be weighted toward the last couple of decades. I have of course read earlier titles, but it's easier to get caught up in the hype and read several shortlisted titles for a given year when it's happening around you!

Oh and of your list, I couldn't finish Illywhacker (Oscar & Lucinda remains the only Peter Carey I have finished - read twice in fact - and I've tried all his other novels but one) or The Handmaid's Tale, so they weren't likely to make my list of nominees. Others might have named them but not ranked them high enough to make the final tally.

[Marie Phillips]

The problem with public polls like this is that you can only vote for books you have read, which means that the big sellers tend to get the nod over other books which may be of higher quality but that simply didn't sell in such high numbers. I, for example, can only vote for Atonement, Cloud Atlas, Waterland or Never Let Me Go. I'd be interested to see in this comments strand people say not only which of the books they voted for but also which they were choosing between. (As it happens I haven't decided yet which of those four will get my nod as I thought they were all good but none of them favourites of mine.)

[poppy]

Why we cannot vote for two or three? I voted The Master of Colm Toibin but i feel so bad leaving Ishiguro and Sarah Waters out. I'm surprised though that Cloud Atlas gathers so many preferences - not that the book isn't a worthy one but i do suspect that its vote represents mostly a particular fashion of hype view.
Toibin is amazing also as person - nothing to do with the usual 'english' retinence, you know :)

[Charles Lambert]

Well, I've read six of these (i.e. not McGahern, Ishiguro, McCabe and Waters; of these I want to read the McGahern and I don't want to read the Ishiguro, or indeed, any Ishiguro). Of the six, I'd choose The Restraint of Beasts, which strikes me as just as much a tour de force as Cloud Atlas, and far less showy. I didn't like Atonement - of McEwan's work, I'd rather have seen A Child in Time or Black Dogs on the list. I've got a lot of respect for Barnes, but don't think A and G is one of his best, and I don't remember Waterland well enough to know whether this is my fault or the book's. My second choice would be The Master.

[jem]

I've only read 4 of these but with no hesitation I went for Cloud Atlas. Reading it made me open my eyes wider with every page, and I swear there was some sort of sparking happening inside my head!

[poppy]

Maybe i'm more affected by the greek translation of Cloud Atlas than i thought (it just doesn't read and got the worst reviews here)- it's not an excuse enough though, i had read it before in english and i didn't get any sort of 'sparkling'. It was very good, indeed but The Master has such a subtlety and finesse in its subject's handling that it really needs a true master for it.
I'll vote again also for Ishiguro though, i just cannot resist..:)

[David Belbin]

To do this properly I'd have to reread the eight I've read and have a stab at McCabe and Waters. I loved McGahern's 'Amongst Women' but had the criminally ignored 'That They May Face The Rising Sun' been on there, I would have voted for that. It's a good shortlist, and when I've made up my mind between 'Cloud Atlas' and 'Atonement', I'll get round to voting...

[Scott Pack]

Dan. I must disagree with you about Magnus Mills. It may not set out to be heavy literary fodder but it is a wonderfully entertaining Kafka-esque novel and a thought-provoking read. Its lack of pretension makes it a cut above many books that have won the prize.

Iain. I found A Long Long Way to be very dry and dull and could never get past the first few pages.

John. I can actually see both sides of the Cloud Atlas argument. I loved it, and loved reading it, but I agree with you that the various parts are not pulled together sufficiently to make it the 'perfect' novel. It is a bold and exciting experiment that almost comes off. As you know my theory is that Mitchell's first three books are all short story collections that he has linked together to make into novels.

Poppy. I can't speak for Greece but I don't think Cloud Atlas was hyped over here. It did get a big push from the publisher but I felt that was down to a genuine and massive enthusiasm for its content. Hype, for me, is when the advance buzz is not matched by the book itself. I seem to recall Sceptre raving about Andrew Miller's The Optimists shortly after the success of Cloud Atlas but the book simply didn't live up to it.

Marie. I accept that to be entirely fair you have to have read all the books but there's nothing wrong in voting for any of them that you enjoyed.

[Josie]

Sarah Waters deserves more votes!

[Sam]

Went for The Master, which is a very moving book. Cloud Atlas was good fun but a book structured in such an original way deserved to be backed up with ideas that were equally original.

Even more criminal than leaving The Remains of the Day off the Best of the Winners list, is leaving both - both! - William Trevor's The Story of Lucy Gault, and Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance off the Best of the the Rest list.

And even more criminal than that is not having a single book by a writer outside of Britain and Ireland. Dirt Music; A Fine Balance; Fasting, Feasting; Unless; The Beggar Maid; Remembering Babylon... In this decade alone, one third of the titles eligible for this list were by writers outside of GB&I. Judges - must do better!

[Jo]

the list seeems a touch short of women writers - you can see why the Orange Prize was invented!

[Scott Pack]

I must admit Jo that I rarely think about the gender of an author when selecting a book to read or compiling a list like this. In fact, I am pretty sure that gender plays no part at all in my though process when it comes to books. For me, it is always the book that matters. I hadn't even worked out how many men vs women were on the list. For me, it is irrelevant.

[Andrew Kenneally]

I hate woman writers. It's not naturul.

[Andrew Kenneally]

Or even natural. The miss-spelling is a sub-conscious indication of the degree of its unnaturalness.

[Milly Chen]

Agree completely with the thing about not having read all the books, which edges it towards a popularity contest, but that doesn't mean the debate isn't fun. It lets me say this, for instance: Did I miss a section of people ranting about why A Month in the Country wasn't included? If I did, I'm really sorry for boring people. If I didn't, take my rant (friendly enthusiastic for A Month in the Country style ranting rather than angry about any other of these excellent books style ranting) as read.

[Kirsty]

I still say Fingersmith woz robbed. Bloody Life of Bloody Pi.

[Col]

Had to be Cloud Atlas in the end. Reasoning/justification here - http://geographyofhope.blogspot.com/2008/07/best-of-booker-losers.html.