It's a provocative question. Has the Booker prize really gone to the finest novels of the past 40 years? And if not, which gems have been overlooked? We've compiled a list of 13 books - the Booker's dozen that never was - that seem, in retrospect, to have summed up their era. But have we missed out on any?

It already seems so. Jamie Byng at Canongate was stunned that we didn't include Alasdair Gray's Lanark, which missed out on the shortlist in 1981 despite Anthony Burgess's famous comment: 'It was time Scotland produced a shattering work of fiction in the modern idiom. This is it.'

Others have flagged up JG Ballard's Crash as a worthy contender that we overlooked. Are there more? And how useful do you think the Booker is - not to mention the ranks of other literary prizes - at showcasing zeitgeist novels: the ones that truly define our age?