Drum roll please: the 2005 Booker longlist in full. Already being hailed as one of the strongest lists in years, the roll call is seriously heavyweight heavy and includes four previous winners - Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro and 2003 Nobel prize winner JM Coetzee, who's actually picked up the Booker gong twice before. Some very strong women, too: Zadie Smith, Ali Smith and Hilary Mantel all made the cut (both Zadie Smith and Salman Rushdie are on the list for novels that haven't been published yet: Smith's On Beauty and Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown are both due out in early September). And, of course, congrats to the Guardian's own James Meek, who's on there with his astoundingly well-reviewed The People's Act of Love.

It's normally difficult to wring much sense out of the Booker at the longlist stage, but this year's list is surprisingly modest, tipping the scales at just 17 books - five fewer than last year's 22-book list, and 13 down on 2002's high of 30. The Vulture is not a betting woman, but if asked to make a prediction at this early stage, I'd probably be inclined to put my money on a second win for McEwan - Saturday is a far better book than Amsterdam, which won in 1998 - or Ali Smith's The Accidental, which is brilliant. What do you think? You can read the news story in full here.

The longlist in full

The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw

The Sea by John Banville

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry

Slow Man by JM Coetzee

In the Fold by Rachel Cusk

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

All For Love by Dan Jacobson

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

Saturday by Ian McEwan

The People's Act of Love by James Meek

Shalimar The Clown by Salman Rushdie

The Accidental by Ali Smith

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

This Thing Of Darkness by Harry Thompson

This Is The Country by William Wall