Man Booker shortlist announced!

The final contenders for the £50,000 Man Booker Prize will be announced today in a contest where literary heavyweights have been ignored and a hot favourite has emerged.
David Mitchell's "puzzle book" novel Cloud Atlas, which features six loosely-linked narratives set in contrasting time periods and locations, is the 11-4 favourite with bookmakers William Hill.
Mitchell's novel is the strongest ever favourite to emerge at this stage but some outside the gambling fraternity are billing the contest as the most open ever.
"Pundits and punters alike have been tipping up Mitchell's book even before it was published and it has been heavily backed down to 11-4 to take the prize - if it does it could be the worst ever Booker result for bookies," said Hill's spokesman Graham Sharpe.
Judges will reveal the shortlist of six from the 22-book list.
The prize, rewarding the best novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland, is one of the world's most prestigious literary awards.
Winners can expect sales of their book to rocket and may even be able to sell on lucrative film and television rights.
The absence of many established names among the literary elite has prompted fevered speculation on who will emerge as winner.
Authors such as David Lodge. VS Naipaul, Louis De Bernieres and Jonathan Coe all missed out this year.
Critics claim that judges do not give the prize to the year's best novel but reward innovation or unknown writers trying to make their name.
William Hill makes Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, a satire on Britain under Margaret Thatcher, 4-1 second favourite while Colm Toibin's The Master, a novel about famed writer Henry James, is at 13-2.
Other high-profile longlist novels include Susanna Clarke's debut 800-page novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which has been a hit in the United States and is billed as Harry Potter for adults.
Nicola Barker's Clear: a Transparent Novel, which focuses on two misfits who have come to stare at David Blaine during his Tower Bridge stunt, is another contender.
The judges are chaired by former Culture Secretary Chris Smith and also include Rowan Pelling, editor of the Erotic Review, novelist Tibor Fischer, academic Robert Macfarlane and The Economist's literary editor, Fiammetta Rocco.
The winner will be announced on October 19 at an awards ceremony in the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster.