Congratulations Hilary Mantel!

This week, Hilary won the Booker Prize for the second instalment in her Tudor trilogy Bring Up the Bodies, a mere 3 years after winning for Wolf Hall.  She joins the novelists Peter Carey, and one of my scared-cow favourite writers, J.M. Coetzee as the only three writers to win the Booker twice; and if you really love to fact-crunch, she's the first female novelist to do so, and the first writer to win for a sequel. What an amazing achievement - many congratulations to her.

Are you pleased to see Bring Up the Bodies lauded? Are you disappointed that your favourite novel missed out? Are you as relieved as I am that you are not her, and you don't face the gargantuan task of writing the third in the trilogy? It's like being born into a family of a Nobel prize winners.

The Booker Shortlist 2012

In case you haven't heard, the Booker Shortlist 2012 has been announced today, and looks like this:

• Tan Twan Eng - The Garden Of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)
• Deborah Levy - Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber)
• Hilary Mantel - Bring Up The Bodies (Fourth Estate)
• Alison Moore - The Lighthouse (Salt)
• Will Self - Umbrella (Bloomsbury)
• Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis (Faber & Faber

It must be an exciting day for Hilary Mantel, who is a favourite to take the prize, which will make her the first Brit to win twice - an amazing achievement considering her last win for Wolf Hall is still so fresh in people's minds.Thayil and Moore are both nominated for their fiction debuts, which gives weight to the judges claim that this year is all about the novel rather the novelists: it really seems that they're concentrating on delivering a result that prioritises the work above reputation. I'll admit I haven't got around to really any of the novels either long or shortlisted; but I'm really keen to read Narcopolis and The Garden of Evening Mists.

Any thoughts? Has anyone read any of the titles? Are they worthy candidates for Book of the Year?