14 October, 2008

Readable And Page-Turning?

Alison Flood writes in The Guardian that this years Booker Prize judges have described the books on the shortlist as “intensely readable” and “page-turning”, but junta doesn’t think so.

This year the lifetime [sales] figures for the six shortlisted titles are 32,342 - less than this year’s edition of the Guinness World Records achieved in a week.

[...]

[Linda] Grant’s “The Clothes on their Backs”, about a young woman’s fascination with the black sheep of her family, has sold 3,074 copies in the four weeks since the shortlist announcement, according to book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan - considerably more than second placed Aravind Adiga, whose “The White Tiger” has racked up 2,588 sales since the announcement on September 9.

These are stunningly low figures, and I’m quite taken aback. Clearly the prize doesn’t cast quite the aura it once used to. It will be awarded sometime today, and I hope whoever wins is rewarded by a massive rise in sales. Otherwise what’s the point?