2013 Booker Prize Shadow Jury

This year's Booker Prize will be awarded on Tuesday, October 15th. Here is your chance to choose which shortlisted book you think should win. Please rank the books you've read in order of preference by midnight on Monday, October 14th (5:00 am BST on Tuesday, October 15th), and I'll announce the winner that morning here and on the Booker Prize Twitter page.

Feel free to post your current ranking here, even if you plan to finish one or more books by Tuesday.

The shortlist is as follows:

NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names
Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries
Jim Crace, Harvest
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland
Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being
Colm Tóibín, The Testament of Mary

So far I've read five of the six shortlisted novels, and I'll start The Lowland tonight. Here's my rank list:

1. The Luminaries
2. Harvest
3. The Testament of Mary
4. A Tale for the Time Being
5. We Need New Names

Just wondering if you got your copy of The Luminaries in the UK? It's not in our library system and not yet available on Amazon or Audible. Otherwise my list looks similar to yours:

1. The Lowland
2. The Testament of Mary
3. Harvest
4. A Tale for the Time Being
5. We Need New Names

The only one I've read of the shortlisted books is The Luminaries, but I'm happy with its #1 ranking. I'm ranking The Testament of Mary 2 based on the other Colm Toibin books that I've loved (Brooklyn and The Heather Blazing).

So:

1. The Luminaries
2. The Testament of Mary.

Vivian, I got my copy of the Luminaries easily because I live in Wellington, New Zealand, about 1 km from the publisher, Victoria University Press. I'm sorry it's not available on Amazon yet.

>2 kidzdoc: I did; I bought my copy from Amazon UK. I was in London on the day the longlist was announced, but it wasn't available there until after I left. Unfortunately it won't be released in the US until October 15th, the day of the prize ceremony.

Well done on reading the available shortlisted books, vivians! To my knowledge Nathalie (Deern) is the only person here who has completed the shortlist so far (and I think she's completed the longlist as well). If I remember correctly The Luminaries and Harvest were her two favorite shortlisted books.

>3 vivians: I assume that Megan (ireadthereforeiam) will also rank The Luminaries first, Cushla. I can't remember if she's read any other shortlisted books, though.

I've read The Luminaries, and The Testament of Mary. I'm happy to put Catton's book in the #1 spot, I've read a lot of Booker books over the years and this one does shine. Of the others on the shortlist, I'm only interested in reading Harvest.

Darryl, here's my list of the shortlisted books that I've read:

1.
2.
3. The Lowland
4. Harvest
5. A Tale for the Time Being

Haha. I'll finish The Lowland tomorrow and I know that although it started out slow it will come out higher than those two I listed as I'm enjoying it more. I can't wait to get to The Luminaries when it gets released here.

ETA rating for The Lowland

I’m assuming that we’re to rank in order of our own preferences, rather than trying to guess the judges’ preferences. I’ve just started reading The Luminaries (with no hope or intention of finishing it before Tuesday’s prize announcement); I’ve already read the Bulawayo, Crace, Lahiri, Ozeki, and Toibin novels.

I’ll top my list with Toibin’s The Testment of Mary, which I regard as daring, fearsomely imaginative, and beautifully written from beginning to end: some reviewers feel that The Testament of Mary is more a novella than a novel and hence not suited for the Booker, but I think that it’s length is perfect for what Toibin has tried to accomplish. I rank Crace’s Harvest next, which remarkably transported me to what I guess is 16th century rural England.

I can’t rank order Bulawayo, Lahiri, and Ozeki. I found much of We Need New Names deeply affecting, and I am grateful to NoViolet Bulawayo for forcefully bringing to the foreground those among us who usually remain in the background, the invisible workers and permanently uprooted emigrés among us: in other words, the people who cook our meals in restaurants, who clean our houses, who provide the services that we often take for granted. I also admire both The Lowland and A Tale for the Time Being, both of which I found compelling, memorable, and affecting.

In short, 2013 is an excellent year for the Man Booker Prize, despite some needlessly disparaging comments in the British press about the U.S.-based authors.

I've read four of the six shortlisted books. Here is my preference...

1. The Harvest 4.2 stars.
2. A Testament of Mary 4.2 stars.
3. A Tale for the Time Being 4 stars.
4. The Lowland 3.7 stars.

I had to take We Need New Names back to the library unread because I ran out of time.
I am No. 1 on the list for The Luminaries. I'm eagerly awaiting this one.

1. luminaries
2. harvest
3. lowland
4. we all need new names
5. the testament of Mary

I have only read lowland but here are my predictions. good luck to all.

I've read 5 of the 6 and just started The Luminaries, but think my ranking would be:

Harvest
The Luminaries
The Testament of Mary
The Lowland
We Need New Names
A Tale for the Time Being

My personal ranking:

1. The Luminaries
2. Harvest
3. The Lowland
4. A Tale for the Time Being
5. We Need New Names
6. The Testament of Mary

It's been some weeks now that I read all candidates and in retrospective I liked The Luminaries best. But if I were to place I bet I'd say Harvest will probably win. Any of the other 4 would be a big surprise for me, but as we know the Booker jury is always good for a surprise.

I've just finished The Lowland, so I'm done with the shortlist. My final rank order:

1. The Luminaries
2. Harvest
3. The Testament of Mary
4. The Lowland
5. A Tale for the Time Being
6. We Need New Names

May I have the envelope, please...the winner of the 2013 LibraryThing Shadow Jury Booker Prize is The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton! By all measures this book comes out on top, even though only four of us (Cushla, Kerry, Nathalie and myself) read it. We all ranked it #1, so it has the best average score (see below), and it garnered one more first place vote than The Lowland did. I only counted books that jury members had read, and, as Daniel assumed, I wanted the members' opinions about the books they had read rather than guesses about which book the actual jury might choose.

Here is the jury's rank order, with number of votes and average ranking, based on a scale of 1 point for first place, 2 points for second place, etc.

1. The Luminaries: 4 votes, 1.00 average ranking
2. Harvest: 7 votes, 1.86
3. The Lowland: 7 votes, 2.42
4. The Testament of Mary: 7 votes, 2.77
5. A Tale for the Time Being: 6 votes, 4.00
6. We Need New Names: 4 votes, 5.00

Of the first place votes, Catton had four, Lahiri had three, Crace had two and Tóibín had one.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Coming in late with my prediction!!

I think the jury will buck popular trend and go for a big name for winner.

1- The Testament of Mary
2- Harvest
3- The Luminaries
4- The Lowland
5- A Tale for the Time Being
6- We Need New Names

My personal ranking of the 4/6 shortlisted books I read is as follows:

1- The Luminaries
2- The Testament of Mary
3- Harvest
4- A Tale for the Time Being

And the shadow jury NAILED IT!!!

>16 lauralkeet: completely and 100% correct- the Booker group knows its stuff!