Bomber misses its target

News comes in today that Bomber by Len Deighton did not make the short-list for the  Lost Booker Prize, which is to be awarded for the best book of 1970, covering the year when the famous prize was not awarded.

Bomber's inclusion was somewhat of a surprise. Military fiction has never been that well regarded in literary circles, even though Bomber is much more than simply that. The Guardian has a report on the final short-list, which includes Muriel Spark and Mary Renault.

[Stop press] In a piece in today's Observer (online at the Guardian website), one of the judges Rachel Cooke describes the process of whittling down the long list to a short list, and her feelings towards the disparate novels she read.

On Bomber, she writes:

"I have just read 21 novels, all of which were published in 1970, and while a few could be described as polite, none was actively dull. Two – Bomber by Len Deighton and I'm the King of the Castle by Susan Hill – were so exciting, I read them at one sitting."