When it was announced that Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller had won the Nobel Prize for literature this year, I had two immediate reactions: a) the by-now-annual stab of resentment that the blokes in Stockholm have – again – not given Philip Roth the nod; and b) oh, dear, I am such an ignorant git, I haven’t read a single one of Muller’s. [Read more]

On the Guardian’s books blog,  I came across this enjoyable literary parlour game. With the marketing side of publishing being what it is, the game asks you to come up with your own titles/subtitles that might tease, tempt, and force many many readers into buying the book and turning it into a bestseller. [Read more]

Four years after A Long Way Down, his droll, affecting novel about four would-be suicides, Nick Hornby is back. In Juliet, Naked, his new novel, Hornby returns to the territory his long-time fans will instantly recognize: obsession, fandom and popular music, the tropes that made his first two books, Fever Pitch and High Fidelity into bestsellers and him into a literary celebrity. [Read more]

So here we are with the most hotly debated annual shortlist in the English-speaking books world – the final six books vying for the Man Booker Prize 2009.

What has it boiled down to?

Summerland by JM Coetzee

The Children’s Book by AS Byatt [Read more]

What does the Man Booker Prize mean for established, perhaps even great writers, who have not become huge mainstream successes? Alan Hollinghurst, who famously takes many years to write a book, said it buys time to write. [Read more]