No surprises here: Some of the biggest names in the literary world have made the 2017 Man Booker long list recognizing Britain’s best authors, with a few outside exceptions. Colson Whitehead’s National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner The Underground Railroad, Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, and Arundhati Roy’s overdue return after 20 years, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, are all up for the prize. In its fourth year allowing all English-language works, four works by Americans made the cut: Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves, Paul Auster’s 4321, and George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo, alongside Whitehead. The short list will be announced on September 13, with the winner awarded in October. Until then, queue up your book club’s fall reading list accordingly.
Paul Auster, 4321 (Faber & Faber)
Sebastian Barry, Days Without End (Faber & Faber)
Emily Fridlund, History of Wolves (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion Books)
Mohsin Hamid, Exit West (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)
Mike McCormack, Solar Bones (Canongate)
Jon McGregor, Reservoir 13 (4th Estate, HarperCollins)
Fiona Mozley, Elmet (JM Originals, John Murray)
Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)
George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo (Bloomsbury)
Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire (Bloomsbury)
Ali Smith, Autumn (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)
Zadie Smith, Swing Time (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad (Fleet, Little, Brown)