"The Booker Prize shortlist has been announced, and all the big names -- Carey, Mitchell, Messud, Gordimer -- are toast," noted The Elegant Variation. "Why the hell not, we say? We enjoyed the Carey and the Mitchell, but they were scarcely the best books of the year, and no one should get a pass on name alone. We've got three of the shortlisted titles (Desai, Grenville, Hyland) and plan to jump into those in the next week."

"Huzzah! I've read four of them already, and I'm thrilled to see Sarah Waters and Edward St Aubyn on there," rejoiced Victoria at Eve's Alexandria. "I was expecting to see more of the big names ... but this list looks pretty sound. I have the Desai on hold from the library ... but I think I'm going to have to beg or buy a copy of the Hyland. Failing that I'll have to go to Borders every day in my lunch hour and read it in store."

"I am secretly very relieved," confessed Devonshire book blogger DoveGreyReader. "I had become increasingly extreme about things I might do if certain books were on it ... a lunge off Beachy Head was starting to feature strongly. I'm quite grateful there was no sign of the top five bookies' favourites (do bookies read?). I'm going to stride on and catch up with the ones I've missed out, and revisit the ones I've already covered, especially Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn. Perhaps missing a trick there?"

"I am beside myself with excitement," trilled Venetia Butterfield at Penguinon hearing that Hisham Matar's debut novel, In the Country of Men, was through. "It is a book that I care about so much, with a truly exceptional author."

Criticism of the shortlist was generally confined to its omissions. "At long last, the Booker shortlist has been announced. And David Mitchell's Black Swan Green didn't make the cut," observed Ed Champion on the Return of the Reluctant. "Also stubbed out: Peter Carey. I pin the blame on Fiona Shaw for this great oversight. Then again, one must question an organization that considered DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little as an exemplar."

"Well, at least this year Mitchell won't have to wait until the Booker is announced to be disappointed," reflected Scott at Conversational Reading. Shock, too, on the Man Booker Prize blog, which is contributed to by members of Man Booker Prize Library Reading Groups across the UK. "After weeks of excited anticipation (and frantic reading), dressed in our best, we made our way to Random House for the publisher's reception to be greeted not only by sumptuous sandwiches, cake and tea, but also a very surprising shortlist announcement," said the Larks Reading Group of their night at the shortlist launch party. "'A travesty!' was the general consensus ... 'Where is Andrew O'Hagan, where is Robert Edric, where is James Robertson?' and 'Thank goodness we don't have to read Peter Carey again!' ... The opportunity to berate the judges was not passed up."

"If you care, the Booker shortlist has been announced," said the Grumpy Old Bookman, grumpily, "and Sarah Waters is on it. The Night Watch is easily the weakest of her books but, the Booker being the silly affair it is, Sarah might well win."

Beyond the Booker, discussion of Only Revolutions, Mark Z Danielewski's experimental second novel, in which one story runs forward along the top of the page and one backwards along the bottom, is rife. The book, says Book Snorkel's Julia "is more like a collage than a narrative. The bizarre textual layout, varying fonts and illustrations drew me to the book initially, and ... never let me abandon it. It was ultimately satisfying to have to work my way through this book -- and you DO have to work: passive readers be warned. I needed two bookmarks, occasionally three."

"A linguistic revolution is no good if you leave the followers behind," mused Scott, back at Conversational Reading. "I've tried twice now to start this book and each time it feels like an academic exercise in needless obfuscation. Oh yeah, if any situation called for using the word 'obfuscate' it would be this one."