Nice, Short Booker Choices Selling Well

Sales of the entries shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker literary award are booming, according to booksellers, who point to the appealing narrowness of the books’ spines as the major attraction to readers.

That thin one on the bottom will do just fine, thanks

“This year, like the typical reader, we judges are all far, far too busy getting on with our gorgeous lives to read some overwritten cod-philosophical twaddle the size of a housebrick,” said ex-spy chief Dame Stella Rimington, before she was distracted by a bird flying past the window.

Bookmakers say that the award will almost certainly go to the author who has made the least demands on the panel’s easily-distracted minds, which makes Julian Barnes’ slender 146-page effort odds-on favourite to win.

“Like several other contenders this year, Barnes has shamelessly pinched half his plot from the undemanding murder-mystery genre, which is really all anyone can be bothered to read nowadays. That’s got to help,” explained a spokesman for Betfred whose job cruelly forces him to read all six shortlisted books from cover to cover. “Hopefully next year they’ll allow puzzle magazines and TV listing guides in. Then I can do the lot in an afternoon.”