2006 Booker Prize for Fiction: My Longlist

IT’S almost Booker Prize season again. Has it been almost a year? For what it’s worth, here are some novels (among which are a couple of outstanding first novels) which I think are worthy of consideration:

Restless (Bloomsbury, 2006) / William BOYD
Where They Were Missed (Penguin Viking, 2006) / Lucy CALDWELL
Theft (Faber & Faber, 2006) / Peter CAREY
The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton, 2006) / Kiran DESAI
In the Company of the Courtesan (Little, Brown, 2006) / Sarah DUNANT
Gathering the Water (Doubleday, 2006) / Robert EDRIC
Ancestor Stones (Bloomsbury, 2006) / Aminatta FORNA
The Secret River (Canongate, 2006) / Kate GRENVILLE
The Observations (Faber & Faber, 2006) / Jane HARRIS
Kalooki Nights (Jonathan Cape, 2006) / Howard JACOBSON
The Drift Latitudes (Chatto & Windus, 2006) / Jamal MAHJOUB
In the Country of Men (Penguin Viking, 2006) / Hisham MATAR
So Many Ways to Begin (Bloomsbury, 2006) / Jon McGREGOR
Black Swan Green (Random House, 2006) / David MITCHELL
Be Near Me (Faber & Faber, 2006) / Andrew O’HAGAN
The Thirteenth Tale (Orion, 2006) / Diane SETTERFIELD
Mother’s Milk (Picador, 2006) / Edward ST. AUBYN
The Other Side of You (Fourth Estate, 2006) / Salley VICKERS
The Night Watch (Virago, 2006) / Sarah WATERS

THE longlist for the 2006 Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced on August 14, 2006, while the shortlist will be announced on September 14, 2006. The winner of the 2006 Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced on October 10, 2006.