And the winner is…
The 2016 Man Booker Award winner was announced this today. Yesterday our panel made final predictions and we were pretty evenly split between The Sellout and Do Not Say you Have Nothing with Thien’s book having a slight edge. And the prize went to…
Congrats to Paul Beatty in his much deserved win. While I personally was rooting for Madeleine Thien’s book, I thought the Sellout was superb and worthy of the win. All 5 of our panelist read this book before the shortlist announcement and we had predicted it would make the shortlist. Kate and Nicole also predicted it would win the whole thing.
Paul Beatty is the first US author to win the Man Booker!
We want to hear from you! What do you think of the judges’ decision? Do you think the book deserves to win the prize? If not, which book should have won?
Book Worm
jenp27
Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 
awesome! really happy – it had so much going for it. I read some stuff yesterday leading up to this, and I think the consensus was that Do Not Say We Have Nothing was over ambitious, and I agree.
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I’m happy about it. I loved Do Not Say We Have Nothing but I think The Sellout is a good choice. Congrats on selecting correctly.
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I felt ridiculously invested!
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Congratulations on picking correctly!! That was impressive. I really didn’t think it would win. Makes me even more sad that I didn’t even like it . . .but my hat is off to you (and I think to Kate also?)
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Anita I thought your point that The Sellout was too topical to age well was interesting. I guess we should all hope that we can look back on it twenty years from now and wonder what it was about, but unfortunately I suspect that we will still be having that “racism! what racism?” v “are you f*&#ing kidding me?” conversation.
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Thanks, grzebra. I think racism will, sadly, still be topical. What I think is an issue are the cultural references. For example, the Little Rascals television show figures prominently. I am 50, so recall that show, but not vividly. The next generation will not know that show at all. I think that, and other references along those lines, make it hard for this book to remain timeless. And it is so American. If you aren’t current on the state of race relations today . . .I think it is very hard to truly appreciate this book.
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I’m happy this won, even though I was rooting for Do Not Say We Have Nothing. It was a five star book for me, and well worth reading.
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I haven’t read this but from what I’ve heard, I’m not surprised at the win. A little disappointed becasue I think the judges have gone for “edgy” rather than the best, but not surprised.
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Well, I do think that it’s more than edgy. The Sellout is very well written and brilliantly intelligent. I thought Thien’s book was a better novel but The Sellout was very good and I do think it was deserving. Which book did you want to win?
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I haven’t read it yet so I don’t really have an opinion. Just a bit disappointed the prize didn’t go to His Bloody Project, which I read, and liked.
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I quite liked His Bloody Project as well but my gut feeling was that it was too deceptively simple in construction to win.
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I think you’re right.
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I didn’t read any but this one, so happy to have read the winner.
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this was impressive.
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