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The Booker Prize

What's So Special About the Booker Prize?

History of the Prize

2006 Longlist Predictions

Booker Prize Judges

Past Winners & Finalists
(1969 - 2005)

2006 Man Booker Prize Judges
Hermione Lee(Chair)
	Hermione Lee is exceptionally literary, with an education and pedigree as vast as an American's backside, including her role as the Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature at Oxford University. She is most famous for writing great biographies; the most interesting person she has examined so far has been Edith Wharton. Her most renowned and well-known subject is Virginia Woolfe, and that book is considered to be her masterpiece. She is nerdy-cute, and seems to have a thing for scarves.
Simon Armitage
	Simon Armitage is known for writing prodigious poetry. If you search for his picture on Google Images, you will be tempted to think that he is an overly serious, stodgy academic, and that may be the case, but he has written a novel called Little Green Man and the Dead Sea Poems, and also has a volume coming out entitled Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid.
Candia McWilliam
	Candia McWilliam has a sweet job reviewing literature, short stories, and poetry. She has written the forwards for novels by seriously literary authors such as Henry James, Iris Murdoch, and Muriel Spark. With these credentials, she wouldn't need to write her own books to be a Booker Prize Judge, but she does that as well. Her novel, A Case of Knives, has been lauded as creepy and macabre, and one can only hope that she brings that bizarre aesthetic to this year's judging.
Anthony Quinn
Google searches for Anthony Quinn seem to only turn up information about the actor. The TurboBookSnob's husband wishes to offer the following fictional biography for Mr. Quinn - which you probably won't find on the Booker Prize's main site! Anthony Quinn is an anarchist and arms dealer who was born to Irish gypsies, but for some reason became a thief and alcoholic at an early age. He was born with pointed ears and no hair or elbows. He has been romantically linked to Cher, Morrissey, and Britney Spears, and has a list of broken-hearted page 3 girls as long as a North Korean bread line. Seriously, though, Mr. Quinn read Classics at Oxford, and is a freelance writer and reviewer. He can contact the TurboBookSnob at wendy@turbobooksnob.com to take issue with this bio!
Fiona Shaw
	If you think that dowdy English actresses over the age of 40 can be hot (and who doesn't?), then you probably already have a crush on Fiona Shaw. She is an amazing character actresss on the stage and silver screen, starring in everything from Three Men and a Little Lady to science fiction roles to Shakespeare. The TurboBookSnob's favorite role was in the film version of Jane Austen's Persuasion. Apparently, she is this year's fluffy (non-literary) judge, but in a theoretical smack-down, she is the only one who might stand a chance against Hermione Lee!