Enough lately on these pages about the best thrillers of the year and Amazon’s uninspired list of fall pre-orders. Let’s chat about a more literary endeavor—the announcement of the longlist of books nominated for the 2013 Man Booker Prize. This prestigious 45-year-old prize is awarded to the “year’s best” English-language novel coming out of Britain and the Commonwealth. Culled from some 151 candidates, the 13-novel longlist will be reduced to a shortlist of six to be announced in early September. On this first list are authors from Britain, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, and Ireland.

Says Robert Macfarlane, chair of the five-member judging panel, “This is surely the most diverse longlist in Man Booker history: wonderfully various in terms of geography, form, length and subject.  These 13 outstanding novels range from the traditional to the experimental, from the first century AD to the present day, from 100 pages to 1,000 and from Shanghai to Hendon.” And, for the first time, one entry (Richard House’s four-part political thriller The Kills) was first published digitally. The author, who is also an artist and film-maker, provides an enhanced edition with video that can be accessed at http://www.thekills.co.uk. (Anything featuring the rooftops of Istanbul captures my immediate interest!)

The nominees (with links to mini-bios) are:

• Five Star Billionaire Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)
• We Need New Names NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
• The Luminaries Eleanor Catton (Granta)
• Harvest Jim Crace (Picador)
• The Marrying of Chani Kaufman Eve Harris (Sandstone Press)
• The Kills Richard House (Picador)
• The Lowland Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)
• Unexploded Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton)
• TransAtlantic Colum McCann (Bloomsbury)
• Almost English Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle)
• A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)
• The Spinning Heart Donal Ryan (Doubleday)
• The Testament of Mary Colm Tóibín (Viking)

What? You haven’t read them all? No surprise there, since five of the books (McLeod, Harris, Mendelson, Catton, and Lahiri) were still unpublished as of the longlist announcement, though their publication dates have been quickly moved forward. That all these late-appearing but apparently worthy books are by women is interesting, but perhaps only coincidence, since eight of the authors are women.

While the Booker is one of the world’s top literary prizes—or, perhaps, because it is—over the years the judges and awardees have come in for their share of sniping. Occasionally, critics have thought a choice unworthy or made because a chief competitor was politically awkward. Among the 15 Booker winners I’ve read were a few I didn’t much like, but on the whole they are a strong group. You could do worse.

Here are the ones I’ve admired most (OK, I didn’t actually read The English Patient, but I saw the movie three times) and highly recommend:

• Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient (1992)
• Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things (1997)
• Ian McEwan – Amsterdam (1998)(audio)
• Peter Carey – True History of the Kelly Gang (2001)(audio)
• Yann Martel – Life of Pi (2002)
• Aravind Adinga – The White Tiger (2008)(audio – absolutely brilliant!)
• Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall (2009)
• Hilary Mantel – Bring Up the Bodies (2012)

Enjoy!