Man Booker 2013

Jana's visit coincided with the annual Man Booker Prize Reading event.  This is the one I went to last year where the short listed authors all read and talk a bit about their books.  The prize winner will be announced Tuesday night.  For those of you not in the book world, the Man Booker is a BIG deal and the fact that I've been able to go to this event twice is still amazing to me.  

 And the short listers are....Colm Toibin, Ruth Ozeki, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jim Crace, Eleanor Catton and NoViolet Bulawayo.  Mark Lawson from the Guardian was the moderator in the middle.

 I have only read one of the shortlisted books so far but if I had to make a judgement based on the event I would have to say Jim Crace is the favorite with Eleanor Catton as my safety backup.  I was very wrong about the Women's Prize this spring though, so my guess really means nothing.

Lately it seems like every event throws out the No Photo caveat just to taunt me.   I snuck that shot of them on stage and figured I would get better ones at the signing table but they kept repeating the no photo rule even in the lobby.  But we could take photos of ourselves - which is always a good time.

 Here is one I was able to quickly take of Ruth and Eleanor before a fan got in the way.

 I like to think of this one of Jim Crace's neck as a sort of impressionistic view of a book signing. 

A great ending to a very fun weekend.  Jana and I went out to dinner after and stayed over night in the big city.