Books

No sooner had we got used to the broad and unusually strong Man Booker longlist of 17 books, than the five judges whittled it down to a final six novels and the composition of the real race took shape. The carnage we expected before the announcement of the first list was saved for this week with neither the favourite, Ian McEwan's Saturday or the always-involved Salman Rushdie clearing the final hurdle. By hinting that these two weren't even in the final eight, the judging committee sent a message of 'not even close' to these vaunted books.

A Page in the Life is a collection of short stories written by listeners to The Marian Finucane Show about their everyday experiences. Here we reproduce three of them.

Like any child of our times, Village loves a good competition – from Best Film Ever Made to Worst Number One of the Century, you can consider us ready and willing to voice our opinion. When it comes to polls of books, Village is never happier than when elbow-deep in Man Booker longlists or Waterstone's vote for the 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. However (and we blame Channel 4) round about the turn of the century, some lazy marketing executive or salesman changed the rules, and took all the fun out of these polls.

Colm Toibín reviews a
new book about America's most respected literary critic, Edmund Wilson

John Irving was in town last week, fresh from the Edinburgh festival to give a public interview to Myles Dungan for Rattlebag on RTÉ1. Irving was revealing and loquacious, holding forth on his absent father, (who died without the two meeting) the tattoos he got in research for his current epic Until I Find You and his current writing plans. He was slighter and smaller than expected and looked a good decade younger than his 63 years.

Intel founder Robert Noyce may be credited as the inventor of the integrated circuit, but according to Leslie Berlin's new book, he didn't do it single-handedly. By Clive Thompson

Bestselling author Jay McInerney considers Benjamin Kunkel's first novel, Indecision, one of the smartest, funniest coming-of-age novels in years

Nature expert Richard Nairn's new book on Ireland's beautiful coastline will make readers pack up their bags, buy a map of Ireland and head for the shore.

Despite the fortuitous date of its publication and the familiar voice of its narrator, Incendiary suffers from the demands its plot entails and the logistics of capturing an entire city slowly lapsing into chaos.