Here I am ploughing my way through the Booker finalists and I have to buy two other newies for my Christmas consumption. I do like reading my novels in hardback.

First is the new Le Carre - I love David Cornwall and consider he and Gerry Seymour our two best living British writers (Graham Greene was the third until he died).

Second is the new Zoe Heller - I thought her Notes On A Scandal should have won the Booker that year (though I also loved Vernon God Little which I think did).

Both get rave reviews today.

I think I have mentioned this, but the book I actually hated most this year was "On Chesil Beach".
What is interesting is that I hated it probably because it so well written by McKewan and the characters so well thought out and described that it made me really dislike them.
I would not even want to bump into his couple that feature in the book on a Sunday afternoon walk, they would be the pair that you would keep your head down as they approached and pretend that you had a stone in your shoe!
But what can one say? Ian McKewan made me loathe his Edward and Florence characters by sheer good writing.
I wonder if anyone who read the book loved them?

I loved the book as you know Mart (it was me that insisted he read it) but I feel sorry for both characters.

In a way they suffered - in a totally different way - from exactly what I should have suffered from - the social (and basically I blame religion) suffocation of sexual honesty.

It ruined their lives. It tried (and failed) to ruin mine.

Best books not to win the Booker recently, in my not-at-all 'Umble opinion - by U. Heep

1) Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro - came second a couple of years ago; should have won; the best novel of the century by miles.

2) Notes On A Scandal by Zoe Heller - brilliant book; the most fascinating character invented in years (Barbara).

3) Quarantine by Jim Crace - nominated in 1997, about Jesus in the wilderness - a stunning novel.

If someone were to ask me which novel would change their lives I'd have no hesitation in saying "Anything by Dickens or Never Let Me Go".