Book Notes: Insider News

That Man Booker Prize Again Critics and reviewers have struggled to discuss Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, second favourite for this year's Man Booker prize next month. This is primarily due to the twist in the plot, one that unlike a thriller is slowly revealed – even a hint at the main thrust of the tale will lessen your enjoyment of the revelation. The reader finds out what's going on at the same pace and time as Ruth, Tommy & Karen, the children attending Hailsham boarding school who grow to adulthood in the story. Ishiguro is a measured storyteller, slowly dropping hints and ominous portents of the future. He has already proven himself the master of the understated and the unsaid in his Booker winning The Remains of the Day, the heartbreaking story of repression and love amongst domestic servants. Here, he uses these skills to avoid alienating his readers with his subject matter, neatly sidestepping the dangers of genre in a simple accessible novel that ignores convention. It is a fable, a modern talking point and a novel that will make you feel differently about your children's artwork forever. It will enthrall you more if you can avoid details of its plot, something which escaped The Irish Times who revealed this secret on their front page a few weeks ago. Favourite Julian Barnes probably has more supporters but we think Never Let Me Go could be the one to steal the prize, 16 years after Ishiguro's first victory. Going, Going, Gonzo Hunter S Thompson – poitical diarist, national affairs correspondent for Rolling Stone and author of scathing commentary on American malaise like Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail – is set to have his suicide note printed in this month's edition of Rolling Stone. For the man who invented 'gonzo' journalism, this is perhaps the ultimate act of putting yourself in the story. Billed, somewhat dramatically, as possibly the last words he ever wrote, they were dated 16 February, a few days before he shot himself at his kitchen table. Headlined 'Football Season is Over', the note contains the lines "No more games. No more bombs. No more walking. No more fun. 67. That is 17 years past 50, 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am getting bitchy. Act your old Age. Relax – this won't hurt". His ashes were jettisoned by rocket into the sky over his Aspen, Colorado estate last month so he is probably better remembered through Bill Murray and Johnny Depp's portayals of him in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Where the Buffalo Roam, released as a double bill on DVD this month. The Irish are Coming Three Irish books appear in the UK Top 30 books this week. Maeve Binchy unsurprisingly topped sales of 300,000 since June with her latest bestseller Nights of Rain and Stars. Two other books are less expected. Maura Murphy's Don't Wake Me at Doyles continues its slow build, mirroring previous successes for memoirs like Peter Sheridan and Frank McCourt. Jumping 66 places to number 29 a fortnight ago was the new book from Sinead Moriarty, Perfect Match, whose sales mirror those of her first book, which were achieved on the back of a heavy press marketing campaign. Things have been quieter this time round but sales still seem as good. Moriarty might be remembered as being the only person in the Irish Top 5 at one point last year that wasn't Dan Brown. A year later, she is back in the paperback charts, with Binchy and three of those same Brown books. Poised to remove at least one of these both here and in the UK is Roddy Doyle with the paperback release of Oh Play that Thing, the second book in his Henry Smart trilogy. It had mixed reviews and sales in hardback and it will be interesting to see if these improve. A Rising Tide John Banville was expected to be at the centre of a Man Booker storm when his nomination to the initial longlist was announced. Ian McEwan was the anticipated early favourite and Banville had reviewed McEwan's Saturday for the New York Review of Books, deeming it "disturbingly bad". Those sharpening their pencils in anticipation of a dogfight were to be disappointed when Banville's The Sea was the only one of the two to make it to the shortlist. He has been there before when The Book of Evidence lost out to Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day. Will he lose to the same man this year? The Sea is the story of a recently widowed historian, Max Morden, who returns to the village of Ballyless after the death of his wife Anna. The town holds memories of twins Chloe and Myles Grace, whose family had holidayed there in a Max's happier childhood 50 years earlier. Banville is a well established novelist and journalist, already much recognised since the publication of his first novel Nightspawn in 1971. He has been installed as favourite by a somewhat biased Irish media but stands at 10/1with William Hill.