Bookie Prize

The winner of this year's Man Booker Prize is Kiran Desai for her novel The Inheritance of Loss , which is not yet available from booksellers in Australia. Why not? Many Australians, including me, would be keen to read the winner of such a prestigious award asap; but the only way of acquiring a copy is to source it overseas. No doubt the book will be available here soon, but the delays in doing so make the local book publishing and distribution trades (or their global parents) look inept.


While I'm on the topic, my eyebrows were raised by the official official Man Booker Prize website which features a link to the "Man Booker bookie". I don't particularly mind if people want to bet on the outcome, but what would happen if bookies were allowed to advertise on, say, the websites of sporting bodies?