I've read three Booker prize winners, one of which I hated and two I couldn't finish because I was so incredibly bored.

Okay, that's only three attempts, but I think the experience has turned me off the Booker for life.

I just looked at the list of past Booker winners, and of those I've read, I've loved half, hated one, and felt no particular way about the other half. I love British literature, though, so I think they're just picking the wrong people.

Relating to your later blog on returns, did you know 'The Gathering' had only sold 3000 copies as of last night? OK, I know it's a hardback so not comparable, but it made me feel better even with returns. And continues to beg the question, what motivates the judges?

I shall be the voice of dissent! :-) I thought 'The Gathering' was an incredibly moving and well-written novel. It wasn't my favourite of the shortlist but I wasn't displeased to see it win.

Certainly it isn't a popular kind of book, but then neither is the Booker Prize a populist prize. We have the Costas and reader-voted awards for that. I for one was genuinely excited by the shortlist this year - it broke the mould IMHO. I can't imagine 'Darkmans' being on it in any other year; ditto 'Animal's People'.

So there. ;-p

Hi Victoria - my observation on sales figures was just that, as I haven't yet read 'The Gathering'. I agree with you completely about 'Darkmans' and 'Animal's People', both of which I found wonderful and inventive. For me, this was one of the strongest shortlists for quite a while. And as you know, several of my all time favourite books have been Booker winners.

I take your point about there being a place for both peer group review and reader votes for different prizes, but I still think the Booker tends to blow hither and thither according to fashion. If I look back over the last ten or fifteen years of winners, I feel no particular sense of progress, there's nothing I can learn from it about 'the State of the English Novel'. Is that a criticism? I don't know. Thinking aloud here (while minding my three month old grandson - and you know what babies do to the brain!)

As a bog standard punter the booker, to me, means pretension, wordiness, a novel written with more of an eye on proving the author's intelligence than engaging a reader. Maybe I'm just an unsophisticated git but in my view good art shouldn't have to hurt and a good book... well... you shouldn't need the literary equivalent of Sherpa Tensig to drag you to the end of it.

Cheers

MM