:00:26. > :00:31.Hello and welcome to The Culture Show, coming to you tonight from
:00:31. > :00:34.the village of Comrie in Perthshire. 400 miles away in London, the
:00:34. > :00:37.winner of the Man Booker Prize is about to be announced. But here
:00:37. > :00:41.we're about to make a very special and, some would say, much more
:00:41. > :00:43.democratic announcement at our own alternative ceremony. The villagers
:00:43. > :00:53.here have been voraciously reading the novels on the Booker shortlist,
:00:53. > :01:09.
:01:09. > :01:13.and tonight we'll be finding out It's early September and the
:01:13. > :01:15.shortlist for the Man Booker Prize has just been announced. In the
:01:16. > :01:21.village of Comrie, people are gearing up for a Culture Show
:01:21. > :01:24.reading marathon that's become a bit of an annual event.
:01:24. > :01:28.I'm interested in the book about accuracy of memory, remembrance - I
:01:28. > :01:35.can't remember the title offhand. I've got it written down. The Sense
:01:35. > :01:40.Of An Ending. The villagers have agreed to read and score out of ten
:01:41. > :01:44.as many of the Booker-shortlisted novels as they can. I've got a sea
:01:44. > :01:48.story, I imagine, by Carol Birch. And The Sisters Brothers, which I
:01:48. > :01:51.think is a western of some sort, and I'm looking forward to both of
:01:51. > :01:54.them. For myself, Half Blood Blues, for
:01:54. > :02:03.my sister, Jamrach's Menagerie, and for my boyfriend The Sisters
:02:03. > :02:06.Brothers. I've got something for everybody. So, let me tell you a
:02:06. > :02:10.bit about the books on this year's shortlist. Well, the official Man
:02:10. > :02:13.Booker judges have come in for a bit of stick this year, because
:02:13. > :02:18.there's only one book on there by a household name, and that's Julian
:02:18. > :02:21.Barnes, and his book The Sense Of An Ending. Looking at the crits of
:02:21. > :02:27.it, it's obviously going through the years for a man from childhood
:02:27. > :02:31.to manhood and his experiences in between. It's a novella, so I think
:02:31. > :02:34.I'll manage that. There are two books by first-time novelists,
:02:34. > :02:39.who've both done really well to get on the shortlist. Pigeon English by
:02:39. > :02:42.Stephen Kelman, and Snowdrops by AD Miller. Described as disturbing,
:02:42. > :02:47.dazzling, electrifying and leaves you stunned and addicted. Well, I'm
:02:47. > :02:52.all for that. The next one is Jamrach's Menagerie
:02:52. > :03:02.by Carol Birch. She's a pretty established author. This is her
:03:02. > :03:03.
:03:03. > :03:09.11th book, but still not that not well known. Victorian London?
:03:10. > :03:13.don't know any of these authors apart from Julian Barnes. You have
:03:14. > :03:20.to give me some clues. The last two are by Canadian authors. The
:03:20. > :03:27.Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt. And Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan.
:03:27. > :03:30.That book is quite interesting, yes, the aftermath of the fall of Paris.
:03:30. > :03:36.My sort of subject. I'm on parade for those.
:03:36. > :03:44.What about you, what do you think? And stop scratching, you're on
:03:44. > :03:48.camera. This is going to be the fourth time I've been to Comrie and
:03:48. > :03:54.they have never once picked the book that's one, so I'm looking
:03:54. > :03:56.forward to hearing what they will make of this lot.
:03:56. > :04:03.It's been two weeks since the villagers started their reading,
:04:03. > :04:06.and I've come to Comrie to find out what they think. My first stop is
:04:06. > :04:09.the coffee morning at the Women's Institute Hall, where I've arranged
:04:09. > :04:19.to meet Ian Pinkerton, who's been reading The Sisters Brothers by
:04:19. > :04:19.
:04:19. > :04:22.Patrick DeWitt. Hi, Ian. How are you doing?
:04:22. > :04:25.The Sisters Brothers is a Western, set during America's gold rush, and
:04:25. > :04:28.tells the story of two brothers, both professional killers, who make
:04:28. > :04:36.a journey across the Wild West, taking out anyone who gets in their
:04:36. > :04:40.way. I was quite intrigued by that book as a story. I had an
:04:40. > :04:44.interesting visual response to it. I regarded it as like a black and
:04:44. > :04:54.white film. The behaviour of the characters is, shall we say,
:04:54. > :04:55.
:04:55. > :05:02.outrageous, but this is 1851. I would commend it as a book.
:05:02. > :05:06.does this compare to previous Booker...? I would say better.
:05:06. > :05:10.Maybe that's the best one that I have read.
:05:10. > :05:13.Next I head out of the village to check in with Norma Mitchell. She's
:05:13. > :05:16.been reading Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, a story narrated by
:05:16. > :05:20.a Ghanaian boy, a recent immigrant to Britain, who decides to try to
:05:20. > :05:30.uncover the truth behind the brutal murder of a child on the South
:05:30. > :05:31.
:05:31. > :05:38.London estate where he lives. Hi Norma. Hi, how are you? I'm good. I
:05:38. > :05:48.like your wheels. The first book you read... It was Pigeon English.
:05:48. > :05:49.
:05:49. > :05:51.Stephen Kelman. There you go. you.
:05:51. > :05:54.Thank you. An exceptional first novel, absolutely wonderful. I
:05:54. > :05:57.think because it's narrated by an 11-year-old boy it works. You're
:05:57. > :06:00.captivated by him, he's such a sweet, naive boy, but as time goes
:06:00. > :06:05.on, in this inner city environment, I think he's slowly corrupted, bit
:06:05. > :06:08.by bit. You have a sense of foreboding that something's going
:06:08. > :06:15.to happen at the end, and at the end it just comes and hits you
:06:15. > :06:20.pretty quickly. But first-time novel, absolutely excellent.
:06:20. > :06:25.turns out Norma's not the only fan of Pigeon English. It was sad, it
:06:25. > :06:28.was comical, it made me laugh out loud. And it was really thought
:06:28. > :06:31.provoking. It was really really well written. I liked the warmth of
:06:31. > :06:34.the family, the Ghanaian family which finds itself in this
:06:34. > :06:37.situation. And the very fact that through all of the difficulties
:06:37. > :06:39.through which they have to pass, living in this high-rise flat with
:06:39. > :06:49.a largely antagonistic grouping round about, the family hangs
:06:49. > :06:56.
:06:56. > :07:00.together. It was alright. Any book that can make you laugh out loud is
:07:00. > :07:03.worth every prize there is out there. It is a book for those who
:07:03. > :07:10.are able to look beyond the words and look into the critical
:07:10. > :07:14.situation in which a young boy finds himself, in an alien culture.
:07:14. > :07:17.Fancy meeting you here. Who would have thought...
:07:17. > :07:20.My old friend George Carson has been reading Half Blood Blues. It's
:07:20. > :07:30.about a mixed race German musician who's disappeared during the Nazi
:07:30. > :07:30.
:07:30. > :07:33.occupation of Paris. This is a book I've just finished.
:07:33. > :07:36.Written in Baltimore slang, and cutting between 1940 and 1992, the
:07:36. > :07:42.story is told by a fellow musician, who's been harbouring a dark secret
:07:42. > :07:45.for more than 50 years. At first I didn't think I'd like it, but I
:07:45. > :07:47.really got quite engrossed in it. And the language I didn't
:07:47. > :07:54.understand, a patois, but once I recognised what they were talking
:07:54. > :07:58.about, I appreciated the rhythm. Can I just show you something?
:07:58. > :08:02.I think it was page eight, just at the beginning. And I was quite
:08:02. > :08:05.taken with this. And then I thought... "Me I was American. And
:08:05. > :08:08.so light-skinned folks often took me for white. Son of two Baltimore
:08:08. > :08:16.quadroons. I came out straight- haired, green-eyed, a right little
:08:16. > :08:26.spaggot." There's a rhythm about the writing. The grammar's terrible,
:08:26. > :08:27.
:08:27. > :08:34.but the rhythm is great. I enjoyed it. Good. Your verdict? I thought
:08:34. > :08:37.it was great. Very interesting, very powerful. But quite bleak.
:08:37. > :08:43.book was dark, but there was the flow. What it was like in Nazi
:08:43. > :08:53.Germany for people of colour was interesting, but quite scary.
:08:53. > :08:57.
:08:57. > :09:04.author of Half Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan, lives in Canada. Hello?
:09:04. > :09:07.Hello, it's time in Cymru from The Culture Show. Hi, how are you?
:09:07. > :09:11.good. She's agreed to chat to some of the
:09:11. > :09:15.villagers on-line. How were you inspired to write this book? I was
:09:15. > :09:17.in Germany. I'd been living there for about a year, and just coming
:09:17. > :09:24.across this very quick, glancing reference to the children of white
:09:24. > :09:27.German mothers and black colonial soldiers from France's colonies. I
:09:27. > :09:30.was just completely fascinated by this and started looking more into
:09:30. > :09:38.the history in general of black people in Europe, and in Germany in
:09:38. > :09:45.particular. The whole story just sort of came to emerge out of this
:09:45. > :09:48.detail. I felt the ending with the forgiveness side of it was very
:09:48. > :09:58.strong, and although it was very bleak, I found that just so moving
:09:58. > :10:01.and a fantastic end to the book. Somebody asked the other day, why
:10:01. > :10:04.do you write, and for me it's always to move somebody, or to
:10:04. > :10:14.write something that if it doesn't move you maybe you will think about
:10:14. > :10:15.
:10:15. > :10:25.it a little bit after you put it down. That's a really great
:10:25. > :10:25.
:10:25. > :10:31.compliment for me, so thank you very much, it's nice to hear it.
:10:31. > :10:35.Thank you very much. Bye. In our previous reading marathons,
:10:35. > :10:39.the villagers have met writers in London and talked over the internet.
:10:39. > :10:42.No Booker-shortlisted authors have ever made it to Comrie before. But
:10:42. > :10:45.today Stephen Kelman, author of Pigeon English, and Carol Birch,
:10:45. > :10:55.author of Jamrach's Menagerie, have come to the village to meet the
:10:55. > :10:55.
:10:55. > :11:02.local Book Club. I'm giving them each a quick tour of Comrie first.
:11:02. > :11:06.Hi, this is Carol. Nice to see you. She's the author of Jamrach's
:11:06. > :11:12.Menagerie. Which I have read. It's fantastic, a young chap starting
:11:12. > :11:18.off in the butcher's shop, with the description of what was going on
:11:18. > :11:25.there. The butcher's down the road, did you read that? Yes. I very much
:11:25. > :11:30.injoid your book. Enjoyed? I'm not sure enjoy is the word but I
:11:30. > :11:39.appreciated and I hope you have great success. Thank you.
:11:39. > :11:42.I can get on with picking my onions now. We've got bridies, Scotch pies,
:11:42. > :11:50.steak pies and sausage rolls. Like Pigeon English, Carol's book,
:11:50. > :11:55.Jamrach's Menagerie, has gone down well in the village. A super book.
:11:55. > :11:57.I really enjoyed it. I liked the book. I thought it was well written,
:11:57. > :12:00.and I think if you like particularly stories of the sea,
:12:00. > :12:04.this covered it very well indeed. Jamrach's Menagerie is set in
:12:04. > :12:09.Victorian London and follows the adventures of a boy sent off to the
:12:09. > :12:12.East Indies on a whaling boat on a mission to capture a wild animal.
:12:12. > :12:20.When he's shipwrecked, he and a handful of survivors have to face
:12:20. > :12:24.their fate alone at sea. The book's been a big hit with Andrew
:12:24. > :12:28.Finlayson. It says on the back cover it's a bit of Moby Dick, it's
:12:28. > :12:32.a bit of Treasure Island, it's a bit of The Rime of the Ancient
:12:32. > :12:35.Mariner, and a bit of a scattering of Dickens. So the Dickens bit, it
:12:35. > :12:38.evokes London beautifully at the beginning. And then it gives you
:12:38. > :12:42.the Moby Dick stuff, high seas drama, chasing the whales. That was
:12:42. > :12:46.fantastic. And then the last third, which you're not prepared for. It
:12:46. > :12:49.gives you a kicking, it just kicks and kicks, but in the most
:12:49. > :12:53.incredible way. It's Heart of Darkness, it should have said on
:12:53. > :12:57.the back cover. So the book went from a good book and as it went
:12:57. > :13:04.through into the last third it just raised its game quite high, so I
:13:04. > :13:11.felt it was a very good book. the ones you read, Jamrach's
:13:11. > :13:18.Menagerie would be your choice? Without a doubt.
:13:18. > :13:26.This way to the lion ace den. -- lion's den.
:13:26. > :13:29.Comrie book club, for the first time the authors! Carol and Stephen.
:13:29. > :13:36.We kick off the meeting with the book club by talking about
:13:36. > :13:39.Jamrach's Menagerie. What did you think of the book? I really enjoyed
:13:39. > :13:43.it. I thought it was a really great adventure and it reminded me of
:13:43. > :13:45.books that I had read as a child, adventure stories. I thought that
:13:45. > :13:49.the pace was excellent, the descriptions were excellent. It
:13:49. > :13:53.really took me to London and then to the Far East, so I very much
:13:53. > :13:56.enjoyed it. You seem to get into the psyche of these men who went to
:13:56. > :14:00.sea for adventure, and I think actually I was scared for them at
:14:00. > :14:04.that point. As soon as Jaffy and Tim went off to sea, I was thinking,
:14:04. > :14:07.no, no, no, go home, it's going to end in tears, it's going to end in
:14:07. > :14:14.disaster. I just wanted them to stay in the zoo and be happy and
:14:14. > :14:17.Well, I do too. I feel terrible I put them through all that really.
:14:17. > :14:20.Because, you know, I'm really with their mums. I'm at home with their
:14:20. > :14:23.mums. Carol, at book club the other night, we talked extensively about
:14:23. > :14:27.your book. And we kind of agreed that we found the actual shipwreck
:14:27. > :14:31.period quite tedious. It went on for a long time. Was that your
:14:31. > :14:35.intention to make us, as readers, feel when is this going to end?
:14:35. > :14:41.Well, I didn't want people to be bored. But it was of its very
:14:41. > :14:45.nature. They're basically just floating along passing time. So
:14:45. > :14:49.that was quite a problem actually with the book. I'm sorry if it did
:14:49. > :14:53.bore you, but that wasn't the intention. No, it wasn't boring,
:14:53. > :14:57.but you wanted it to end. But it was the fact that for them life
:14:57. > :15:05.became just a constant tedium. But with very very bright moments of
:15:05. > :15:09.sort of concentrated reality that come through that. Great stuff. OK,
:15:09. > :15:13.so Pigeon English. Thoughts, feelings, comments? You've seen
:15:13. > :15:18.what Comrie is like now. We don't have many murders or really an
:15:18. > :15:22.awful lot of trouble of any kind. Do you think you could have written
:15:22. > :15:25.this book if you'd had a very different upbringing? If say you'd
:15:25. > :15:30.grown up in Comrie rather than where you did, on your estate?
:15:30. > :15:33.Absolutely not. I think I would have loved to have grown up in a
:15:33. > :15:39.place like this. It's beautiful. But that wouldn't have equipped me
:15:40. > :15:42.for the kind of book that Pigeon English had to be. I think having
:15:42. > :15:45.the intimacy with these characters and how they approach their lives
:15:45. > :15:48.absolutely was a necessity in, I think, giving an accurate portrayal
:15:48. > :15:55.and getting across some of the things I wanted to talk about in
:15:55. > :15:59.the book. It's amazing that this is a first novel, really, we think.
:15:59. > :16:03.How does it feel to have been part of a bidding war? I understand
:16:03. > :16:09.there were umpteen publishers after your book? I think umpteen is the
:16:09. > :16:14.official number. If I sit down and reflect on that too much there's a
:16:14. > :16:19.danger my head will explode. It was just an amazingly fortunate time
:16:19. > :16:22.and completely unexpected. You just have to thank your lucky stars that
:16:22. > :16:27.you've been able to write something that people have responded to in
:16:27. > :16:33.that way. And that's a real gift. And that attention was I think very
:16:33. > :16:37.humbling for me. Thank you all very much and in particular thank you
:16:37. > :16:42.Stephen and Carol for coming up and being the first authors to come and
:16:42. > :16:46.give Comrie a literary stamp of approval. Oh we've enjoyed it,
:16:46. > :16:50.that's for sure. Well, I feel like I've been given the literary stamp
:16:50. > :16:57.of approval by you, so yeah. I just feel like I've been stamped on
:16:57. > :17:00.The Sisters Brothers, the novel by Canadian writer Patrick deWitt
:17:00. > :17:07.about two wild West hitmen making a murderous trip across America, has
:17:07. > :17:14.also proved popular with most of the residents of Comrie.
:17:14. > :17:19.324 pages. Really? Aye, it was a wee bit long. Is that a little bit
:17:19. > :17:22.longer than you normally like? aye. I really enjoyed it, but they
:17:22. > :17:26.were two very very wicked men. was not a book that I would have
:17:26. > :17:32.chosen to read, but I did enjoy it once I got into it. �12.99 on the
:17:32. > :17:38.back of it. Yes. It's supposed to be hilarious. I did nae find any
:17:38. > :17:46.hilarity in it. Patrick, this is the BBC calling. Hi, BBC, how are
:17:46. > :17:48.you doing? I'm good. Er, who would like to start off? I read your book
:17:48. > :17:58.and I have never ever met such well-bred, well-spoken cowboys,
:17:58. > :17:59.
:17:59. > :18:04.ever. Can you tell me where this came from? Well, from the start I
:18:04. > :18:07.knew this wasn't going to be a factually accurate book, you know.
:18:07. > :18:12.I came up with their voices and I knew I wanted them to be
:18:12. > :18:15.intelligent. And I knew I wanted to have a sort of poetic slant. And I
:18:15. > :18:20.didn't want them to be men of few words, as Western protagonists so
:18:20. > :18:23.often are. I wanted them to be men of too many words, you know. So
:18:23. > :18:28.that was just, sort of, the jumping off point for me. Is it realistic?
:18:28. > :18:31.Absolutely not. But did I have fun doing it? Hi, Patrick. I'm Dave.
:18:31. > :18:37.Personally, I thought it was a wonderful book. I really liked it,
:18:38. > :18:41.but I'm a sucker for Westerns. I saw this book as an allegory for
:18:41. > :18:43.contemporary America and I wondered if that was in your vision at all,
:18:44. > :18:49.you know, in terms of the amorality, the corruption, the predatory
:18:49. > :18:53.nature of relationships. And I wondered if you'd thought about
:18:53. > :18:56.that at all? Or if that was something at the end of the book
:18:56. > :18:59.you thought maybe, yeah, this is what this is? It's funny because
:18:59. > :19:09.this question, or variations of this question, have been coming up
:19:09. > :19:11.
:19:11. > :19:14.often, but only from people outside Surprise surprise. If someone in or
:19:14. > :19:21.outside of America wanted to draw those conclusions I couldn't
:19:21. > :19:24.disagree with them, you know. Certainly it's a reflection of my
:19:24. > :19:32.relationship with America. Patrick, I'm Trish and I don't have
:19:32. > :19:36.a terribly intellectual question to ask you. It's maybe a cheeky one.
:19:36. > :19:40.But your book would make a great movie, and I just wondered if you
:19:40. > :19:45.had that in mind, or has anyone approached you so far? Well,
:19:45. > :19:48.there's been some discussion about it actually, yeah. And it's serious
:19:48. > :19:52.enough a discussion that I'm actually not supposed to discuss it,
:19:52. > :19:57.which is a good sign. I'm assuming we're going for the Coen Brothers
:19:57. > :20:00.or Tarantino here? Patrick, you've given everyone a lot of pleasure,
:20:00. > :20:05.so thanks very much. And thank you for your time this evening, our
:20:05. > :20:15.time here anyway. So guys is there anything else you'd like to say to
:20:15. > :20:16.
:20:16. > :20:18.Moving on, as they say, to Mr Miller's Snowdrops. Now this is a
:20:18. > :20:23.good book. The story's really interesting. Well researched, I
:20:23. > :20:28.thought. And those of us who know a little bit about Russia, Moscow,
:20:28. > :20:31.and all those sort of things, will identify with it.
:20:31. > :20:34.Snowdrops tells the story of Nick, an expat British lawyer working in
:20:34. > :20:41.Putin's Moscow. Lured into a scam by a Russian woman, he finds
:20:41. > :20:45.himself involved in a dark world of corruption and possibly even murder.
:20:45. > :20:50.The real reason I chose it was because I don't know anything about
:20:50. > :20:53.Russia. And I felt just looking at the back that it might give me a
:20:53. > :20:57.wee bit of an idea about what life might really be like in Russia.
:20:57. > :21:00.Because it's not a place I've been. And I thought it was really good on
:21:00. > :21:05.that. It gives you a real impression of what Moscow, post the
:21:05. > :21:09.Stalinist era, was all about. Corruption everywhere. Did it make
:21:09. > :21:12.you nostalgic for communism? particularly, no. Is it a Booker
:21:12. > :21:15.winner? I don't know. I don't know. It's quite different from what
:21:15. > :21:21.we've come to expect. But it's all been different this year,
:21:21. > :21:29.The author of Snowdrops, AD Miller, spent three years in Moscow working
:21:29. > :21:32.as a journalist. AD Miller welcome to Comrie. Thank you very much.
:21:32. > :21:35.Guys what did you think of Snowdrops? I think we all really
:21:35. > :21:41.enjoyed it very much, so congratulations. Thank you. Your
:21:41. > :21:43.book doesn't make Moscow a place that I particularly want to visit.
:21:43. > :21:47.Well, without becoming an advert for the Moscow tourist board, I
:21:47. > :21:50.hope it also sort of portrays some of the kind of exhilarating things
:21:50. > :21:54.about living in Moscow. And my reasons for liking Moscow are not
:21:54. > :21:57.the same as those of my narrator I should hasten to add, in case my
:21:57. > :22:00.mother in law is watching. Whilst I'm not presenting this book, and I
:22:00. > :22:03.wouldn't like people to read it as a complete portrait of modern
:22:03. > :22:06.Russia, the kinds of things that happen in it, the kinds of
:22:06. > :22:11.corruption and crime that it describes are very real features of
:22:11. > :22:13.Russian life. I don't think it's something endemic in the Russian
:22:13. > :22:17.personality, but they have had a tragic and particular history which
:22:17. > :22:22.has led them to be where they are. I thought, to begin with, Nick
:22:22. > :22:25.comes across as sort of a slightly shallow sort of character. But I
:22:25. > :22:29.found at the end of the book I still had quite a lot of sympathy
:22:29. > :22:33.for the guy. And I just wondered whether that was how you wanted the
:22:33. > :22:36.reader to feel at the end of it? mean, what this book is about is
:22:36. > :22:39.it's a portrait of an individual's moral decline. A kind of classic
:22:39. > :22:42.21st century man in a way with very few connections, very few
:22:42. > :22:48.friendships. His only real friend in Moscow is a kind of alcoholic
:22:48. > :22:51.journalist. But he's not a terrible guy so I guess I want the reader to
:22:51. > :23:01.judge him but also to understand how he comes to do the things he
:23:01. > :23:06.The final book on the Man Booker shortlist is The Sense of an Ending
:23:06. > :23:10.by Julian Barnes, the only author unable to meet Comrie's readers.
:23:10. > :23:12.The story's narrated by a man in his sixties who receives a letter
:23:12. > :23:20.from a solicitor that prompts him to confront some uncomfortable
:23:20. > :23:22.truths about his past. First thing, it's a beautiful-
:23:22. > :23:27.looking book. It's this lovely cover and then this intriguing,
:23:27. > :23:31.black inky edge. It's like a, like a religious book or a special
:23:31. > :23:35.poetry book or a memorium for somebody. He's very sensitive in
:23:35. > :23:37.the way he writes, Julian Barnes, I think. And he's very, very good at
:23:37. > :23:41.portraying characters. And that's what this book is really good at.
:23:41. > :23:44.The characters are great. beginning of the book, it's quite
:23:44. > :23:47.interesting because it talks about how we all create our own personal
:23:47. > :23:52.histories. You know, we take a number of salient facts from our
:23:52. > :23:57.life and then we join the dots and create an image in our heads. And
:23:57. > :24:02.as we go through life, we just keep doing that image. We loop it in our
:24:02. > :24:05.heads, this memory, and we press a button and it all spools out. Now
:24:05. > :24:08.what happens at the end of your life, or this is what this is about,
:24:08. > :24:11.the end of his life reflecting, what happens when some additional
:24:11. > :24:17.points come into the reference frame and you have to change the
:24:17. > :24:21.whole pattern and does it make you really reassess your whole life?
:24:21. > :24:24.When it came to the end and he started to reassess his whole life,
:24:24. > :24:27.I expected that the rug would be pulled from under the character. I
:24:27. > :24:30.thought he'd open his heart. His heart would just burst out onto the
:24:30. > :24:35.page when he'd found out some hideous things that he'd done. And
:24:35. > :24:38.he came to that revelation. But he didn't. I just expected much more
:24:38. > :24:43.from Julian Barnes, I expected something to hurt. I expected the
:24:43. > :24:48.narrator to be really hurt in some fashion, and he wasn't. It's a very
:24:48. > :24:57.analytical book towards the end. Quite philosophical, but the use of
:24:57. > :25:00.words is excellent. This had the feel of a Booker book.
:25:00. > :25:05.The Sense of an Ending is favourite with the bookies, but not with
:25:05. > :25:11.everyone in Comrie. I didn't care for it, sorry. What would you give
:25:11. > :25:18.that out of ten? Two, for effort. Out of ten for Julian Barnes?
:25:18. > :25:22.and a half? The Sense of an Ending deserves nine out of ten. I give
:25:22. > :25:25.The Sense of an Ending, seven out of ten.
:25:26. > :25:30.To work out Comrie's winner, I've asked the villagers to score all
:25:30. > :25:38.the books they have read. I give Jamrach's Menagerie eight out of
:25:38. > :25:45.ten. I think it would need to be no more than two. Wow. Yes. I scored
:25:45. > :25:55.Jamrach's Menagerie, nine out of ten. 7/10. I give Snowdrops, nine
:25:55. > :25:58.
:25:58. > :26:01.out of ten. 5/10. I'd certainly 7/10. Half Blood Blues. 8/10.
:26:01. > :26:05.would give this one eight, but it's not everybody's cup of tea, Tim.
:26:06. > :26:10.Well I think you'd give it five. Half Blood Blues, I've given it
:26:10. > :26:13.nine out of ten. I think Pigeon English deserves seven out of ten.
:26:14. > :26:20.I'd probably only give it four out of ten, which is disappointing I
:26:21. > :26:26.know. Not very charitable, is it? Not very charitable Tim! I would
:26:26. > :26:32.give it nine out of ten. I would definitely mark it nine out of ten.
:26:32. > :26:42.The Sisters Brothers deserves a seven and a half. Six? Sisters
:26:42. > :26:46.
:26:46. > :26:48.The votes have been cast and the scores are in. It's time to reveal
:26:48. > :26:58.the winning book, ceremoniously piped into the Church Hall by the
:26:58. > :27:08.
:27:08. > :27:15.Scotland has a fine tradition of wilfully not listening to what
:27:15. > :27:23.London says. And it's good to see that Comrie keeps up that tradition
:27:23. > :27:27.when it comes to the Man Booker Prize. If you haven't ever, never
:27:27. > :27:31.ever picked out the winner, so far, what Comrie has done is tapped into
:27:31. > :27:36.the book which tends to be one of the most popular, one of the most
:27:36. > :27:39.loved. So I'm going to do the revelation now. According to the
:27:39. > :27:49.village of Comrie the winning book is Pigeon English by Stephen
:27:49. > :27:56.
:27:56. > :28:01.Hello? Hello, it's Tim Samuels from The Culture Show. I'm in a village
:28:01. > :28:05.hall with the village of Comrie, if you remember them? Of course I do.
:28:05. > :28:09.What a lovely time we had up there the other week. We had a lovely
:28:09. > :28:13.time with you. So much so, that the village have voted Pigeon English
:28:13. > :28:23.their favourite book on this year's Man Booker Prize Shortlist.
:28:23. > :28:24.
:28:24. > :28:31.I'm very honoured and very chuffed! He's very honoured and very
:28:31. > :28:40.chuffed! So well done. Thank you very much. Goodbye and good luck
:28:40. > :28:47.later on. And goodbye from the I mean, he thinks that's great but
:28:47. > :28:52.So the people of this peaceful village in Perthshire have chosen a
:28:52. > :28:56.gritty urban tale as their winner. We'll have to see whether the Man
:28:56. > :29:06.Booker judges agree with Comrie's choice. I think it's wonderful. He