At long last, the Booker Shortlist has been announced. And David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green didn’t make the cut. Also stubbed out: Peter Carey. Personally, I pin the blame on Fiona Shaw for this great oversight.

Then again, one must question an organization that actually considered DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little as an exemplar.

The shortlist, which is truly a collection of surprises, is as follows:

Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss
Kate Grenville’s The Secret River
M.J. Hyland’s Carry Me Down
Hisham Matar’s In the Country of Men
Edward St Aubyn’s Mother’s Milk
Sarah Waters’s The Night Watch