onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/The_White_Tiger_Winner');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/1416562605'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">The White Tiger (Winner!)

by Aravind Adiga

The Booker Prize says:
Born in a village in heartland India, the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram is taken out of school by his family and put to work in a teashop. As he crushes coals and wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape -- of breaking away from the banks of Mother Ganga, into whose depths have seeped the remains of a hundred generations. "The White Tiger" is a tale of two Indias. Balram’s journey from darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success is utterly amoral, brilliantly irreverent, deeply endearing and altogether unforgettable.

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/The_White_Tiger_Winner');" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"> onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/The_White_Tiger_Winner');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/1416562605'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"> 288 page paperback |$8.40 |13 reviews

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/The_Secret_Scripture');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0670019402'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">The Secret Scripture

by Sebastian Barry

The Booker Prize says:
Told through the journals of Roseanne McNulty and her psychiatrist Dr Grene, the story that emerges -- of Roseanne’s family in 1930s Sligo -- is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne’s story becomes an alternative, secret, history of Ireland. Exquisitely written, it is the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/The_Secret_Scripture');" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"> onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/The_Secret_Scripture');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0670019402'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"> 304 page hardcover |$15.33 |10 reviews

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/Sea_of_Poppies');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0374174229'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">Sea of Poppies

by Amitav Ghosh

The Booker Prize says:
In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races and generations. It is this panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, which makes "Sea of Poppies" so alive - as written by one of the world’s finest novelists.

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/Sea_of_Poppies');" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"> onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/Sea_of_Poppies');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0374174229'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"> 528 page hardcover |$17.16

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/The_Northern_Clemency');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/1400044480'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">The Northern Clemency

by Philip Hensher

The Booker Prize says:
Set in Sheffield, "The Northern Clemency" charts the relationship between two families: Malcolm and Katherine Glover and their three children; and their neighbours the Sellers family, newly arrived from London.

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/The_Clothes_on_Their_Backs');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/1844085414'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">The Clothes on Their Backs

by Linda Grant

The Booker Prize says:
In a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Through Vivien we discover the colourful characters at Benson Court, who play a part in the development of this at first, timid and unworldly young woman. Then, one morning, a glamorous older man appears, dressed in a mohair suit, with a diamond watch on his wrist and a girl in a leopard-skin hat on his arm. He is her Uncle Sándor but why, is he so violently unwelcome in her parents’ home?

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/A_Fraction_of_the_Whole');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0385521723'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">A Fraction of the Whole

by Steve Toltz

The Booker Prize says:
As he recollects the events that led to his father’s demise, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and shocking discoveries - about his infamous outlaw uncle Terry, his mysteriously absent European mother, and Martin’s constant losing battle to make a lasting mark on the world he so disdains. It’s a story that takes them from the Australian bush to the cafes of Paris, from the Thai jungle to strip clubs, asylums, labyrinths and criminal lairs, and from the highs of first love to the lows of failed ambition. The result is a rollercoaster ride from obscurity to infamy, and the moving, memorable story of a father and son whose spiritual symmetry transcends all their many shortcomings.

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/A_Fraction_of_the_Whole');" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"> onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/The_Booker_Prizes_2008_Short_List/A_Fraction_of_the_Whole');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0385521723'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;"> 544 page hardcover |$16.47 |53 reviews