I have no problem with a difference of opinion over what is the “best” book, since that seems to me to be inevitable. I do think that when you look at past shortlists, this jury did a particularly bad job in choosing the 13 books from which it eventually chose the winner. I have nothing against the author of the winning book — I do think the jury was lazy in its reading.

The noises emanating from the Booker panel this year strongly suggest they wanted to take the prize in a middle-brow, Richard & Judy direction.

Jonathan, the only difference this year is that Richard & Judy get shown on television.

And I thought the Booker was meant to judge quality literature.

Jem, I think they did judge quality literature this year. They judged it guilty of not being readable enough. Baffling, that!

Thanks, Trevor and John Self.

I think any award that tries to pick out the best fiction in the year will fail miserably, endlessly. Criticizing the Booker or Adiga is not the answer to that. Because an award meets our subjective criterias, our choices, it is good or else not?

BookCrazy, I don’t think there’s any reason to criticise Adiga. He wrote a book, he didn’t pick it for the Booker. You would think that a panel of five, while there’s going to be disagreements, could manage to pick out a high percentage of the year’s best in a longlist of thirteen. Instead they’ve went for “geographical balance” and “readability”, which is just crazy. A book coming from India, Australia, or South Africa is no better than one coming from Ireland, Canada, or the United Kingdom, by virtue of where it came from. So the geographical balance is not the right way to go to judge the best book of the year.

Similarly, readability. It may be that The White Tiger is more readable than, say, Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland (and I thought it was, although I preferred the latter). But, as a judge, looking for the best of the year, where you are duty bound to give books a second and third reading, I would expect the better books to present themselves, not just in the way they are written, but in how they open up new doors with each reading. I don’t think The White Tiger is such a book. Maybe I am wrong, but I doubt I’ll be reading it again to find out what new doors it opens.

The thing is though, although there is no best book, if you don’t look for the best book you won’t even find a list of great books, and that may be where they fell down this year. You will always fail to pick the best book, but in trying you are likely to pick a range of great books, any one of which might be a particular reader’s best.

Adiga’s novel clearly has its defenders, the problem seems to me not so much the winner, as the whole process this year. The emphasis on readability, being a page turner, geographical distribution, what do any of these things have to do with being a great book?

My suspicion is that there is a desire, probably at a higher level than the judges themselves, to make the Booker more accessible. I think that’s an error, but if that is there it would influence the choice of judges and so the choice of novels.

Accessibility be buggered, choose on quality and sometimes it will be accessible and sometimes it won’t but if it isn’t it should at least be inaccessible for good reason. Must everything be accessible in any event?

Besides, if a work is inaccessible, but great, then a Booker listing tells those of us who might care that it’s worth the effort, that the inaccessability does not denote a confusion of concept or overwrought language but merely difficulty. Inaccessibility is only a problem if you then go to the trouble of accessing the work anyway, and it didn’t merit your efforts. It’s not per se a bad thing.

I strongly believe that Adiga’s book deserves to be read for its central idea, and it only helps if that idea is conveyed in a gripping easy-read novel. And I also believe that the very idea that the format of Booker can ever pick the actual best is nothing but a joke.

In all the criticism of Booker, I am happy Adiga will benefit and write more. Better? Let the time speak.

The list of shouldabeens is impressive and really makes me despair at the selection the judges did come up with. I look forward to reading the likes of The Wasted Vigil and Kieron Smith, Boy and feeling better - and worse!

I agree about the lasting impact of ‘The White Tiger’ - last year ‘The Gathering’ was the first title I read and memories of it still stood strong by the time it won. This year ‘The White Tiger’ is remembered as that ok, easy Indian read I started with.

Thanks for your list of should have beens - thats the selection I would have preferred to spent my summer with.

I’m all for encouraging the masses to read but I don’t think the Booker needs to dumb down to do that. There are other good ‘accessible’ prizes and selections to encourage reluctant readers. And I thought the Booker was meant to judge quality literature.

But these do seem like valid criticisms. The noises emanating from the Booker panel this year strongly suggest they wanted to take the prize in a middle-brow, Richard & Judy direction.

Sadly, I worry that the organisers selected the judging panel with exactly that purpose in mind…