Bookplanet: Booker prize longlist announced

This year the longlist is pretty short: 17 titles. Here they are, in descending order of Ladbroke odds:

ARTHUR & GEORGE Julian Barnes
Ladbrokes 4-1
An investigation of a grisly true crime

SATURDAY Ian McEwan
Ladbrokes 5-1
Post-9/11 Britain and the fragility of middle-class values

SHALIMAR THE CLOWN Salman Rushdie
Ladbrokes 7-1
Tale of love and revenge

BEYOND BLACK Hilary Mantel
Ladbrokes 8-1
Medium passes on messages from people’s dead ancestors

ALL FOR LOVE Dan Jacobson
Ladbrokes 8-1
Love story between the daughter of King Leopold II of Belgium and a soldier ten years her junior

THE ACCIDENTAL Ali Smith
Ladbrokes 12-1
A stranger turns up at a family’s Norfolk holiday home

ON BEAUTY Zadie Smith
Ladbrokes 16-1
Social comedy about cross-generational misunderstanding

A LONG LONG WAY Sebastian Barry
Ladbrokes 16-1
Teenager leaves home in 1914 to fight for the Allies

THE SEA John Banville
Ladbrokes 16-1
Art historian confronts a recent loss and trauma

A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN Marina Lewycka
Ladbrokes 20-1
Feuding Anglo-Ukrainian family

THIS THING OF DARKNESS Harry Thompson
Ladbrokes 20-1
The adventures of Charles Darwin on HMS Beagle

THIS IS THE COUNTRY William Wall
Ladbrokes 20-1
Bright teenager heads for trouble

THE PEOPLE’S ACT OF LOVE James Meek
Ladbrokes 20-1
Fable set in 1919 Siberia

NEVER LET ME GO Kazuo Ishiguro
Ladbrokes 20-1
Sinister story about children being bred for experiments

SLOW MAN J.M. Coetzee
Ladbrokes 20-1
A man loses a leg in a bike accident and develops a relationship with a nurse

IN THE FOLD Rachel Cusk
Ladbrokes 20-1
Deception within a marriage

THE HARMONY SILK FACTORY Tash Aw
Ladbrokes 20-1
Three accounts of a haunting episode in the history of a Malaysian Chinese family

I'd put a fiver on Coetzee and Ishiguro each at 20 to 1. A $10 bet for a $100 win. Hey, why not put down $100? Don't bet on leading horse Barnes. He has less of a chance of romping home than a booger in Salman Rushdie's nose. McEwan is the one to beat, I guess.
Links: the good old Guardian, and a full list of links at the Literary Saloon.