The book week in Britain - by Graeme Neill, news editor, The Bookseller

The judges' decision to lose the hotly tipped Alan Hollinghurst, whose novel The Stranger's Child (Picador) has been widely acclaimed, as well as Sebastian Barry with the highly favoured On Canaan's Side (Faber) was the topic of
the week in terms of literary coverage—though chair of the judges Stella
Rimington chose to rebuff all criticism with the blunt pronouncement: "Take
it or leave it".
 Julian Barnes is now favoured to take the (notoriously unpredictable) award
with The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape) a win which would prove his first despite three previous shortlistings. But there are plenty of those in the trade who are excited by the five other candidates, declaring the independent-dominated shortlist a triumph for the Davids against the Goliaths.
  Meanwhile The Bookseller has been talking to retailers about their thoughts on the autumn, and the consensus is that it's a strong and varied year for Christmas offerings, with a wide range of candidates to take the highly coveted bestseller top spots this time around (and just as well—who would want to face this lacklustre market with a middle-rate offering?).
 Waterstone's, going into its first Christmas under m.d. James Daunt, has declared the selection of books on offer "one of the strongest we have seen in some years", picking out literary highlights Haruki Marukami's IQ84 (Harvill Secker), Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot (Fourth Estate) and Claire Tomalin's Charles Dickens: A Life (Viking) among its likely hits for the season.