Man Booker longlist: 'flexibility needed' on pub dates

28.07.14 | Benedicte Page - The Bookseller

Ion Trewin, literary director of the Booker Prize Foundation [pictured], has said "some flexibility" is required in the current year over longlist availability for the Man Booker prize.

Meanwhile Penguin has now agreed to bring forward the publication date of Ali Smith's How to be Both (Hamish Hamilton) to the second half of August (exact publication tbc).

As Jonathan Cape has brought forward publication of Howard Jacobson's J to the 14th August, while Fourth Estate is rushing Joseph O'Neill's The Dog out at the end of this month, this leaves only David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks (Sceptre) and David Nicholls' Us (Hodder) still scheduled for their original publication dates (2nd and 30th September respectively).

Carolyn Mays, Hodder & Stoughton m.d., said of the Mitchell and Nicholls novels: "The problem we have is that the two books not yet published are both books that have been literally a year in the planning. We have to balance the fact of that - the huge commitments to these books not just in the UK but all over the world - with the desire we all have to have them available for sale and all the publicity surrounding the Man Booker. We are talking about what we can do but the practicality of that is difficult - we need to juggle all these things."
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