Book News
Booker prize finalists named.
Two first-time novelists are among six finalists for the prestigious Man Booker prize for fiction.
Indian novelist Aravind Adiga was nominated for his debut, “The White Tiger,” which tells the story of a man’s dreams of escaping poor village life for success in the big city. Australia’s Steve Toltz, another first-time novelist, writes about a father-son relationship in “A Fraction of the Whole.”
Ireland’s Sebastian Barry is a finalist with “The Secret Scripture.” The other three authors in the running are Indian writer Amitav Ghosh for “Sea of Poppies,” English author Linda Grant for “The Clothes on Their Backs” and England’s Philip Hensher for “The Northern Clemency.”
The list lacks the star power of previous Booker finalists. Among those passed over this year was Salman Rushdie, who was on the prize’s 13-book long-list for “The Enchantress of Florence.” In July, Rushdie was named the greatest-ever winner of the literary prize for “Midnight’s Children,” which took the Booker in 1981.
The winner will be announced Oct. 14. Eligible novels must be written in English by writers from Britan, Ireland or the Commonwealth of former British colonies. It comes with an $88,700 award.
The Associated Press
First Lines
The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly
“Everybody lies.
“Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie.
“A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. Even the jury knows this. They come into the building knowing they will be lied to. They take their seats in the box and agree to be lied to.
“The trick if you are sitting at the defense table is to be patient. To wait. Not for just any lie. But for the one you can grab on to and forge like hot iron into a sharpened blade. You then use that blade to rip the case open and spill its guts on the floor.
“That’s my job, to forge the blade. To sharpen it. To use it without mercy or conscience. To be the truth in a place where everybody lies.
“I was in the fourth day of trial in Department 109 in the downtown Criminal Courts Building when I got the lie that became the blade that ripped the case open. My client, Barnett Woodson, was riding two murder charges all the way to the steel-gray room in San Quentin where they serve you Jesus juice direct through the arm.”
Children’s fiction best sellers
1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, by Jeff Kinney
3. The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo
4. Identical, by Ellen Hopkins
5. The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
6. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
7. The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart
8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part- Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
9. The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick
10. The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau
Publishers Weekly
