Man-Booker Short List Sales in a Slump, Collectors Should Keep Their Eyes Peeled

The Bookseller reports this week that sales for books on the Man-Booker short list are down from last year, with books that didn't make the list outselling the short-listers. 

Emma Donoghue's Room leads the pack, followed by Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question which finally snagged a U.S. publisher (Bloomsbury) and will be released Oct. 12, 2010. Pulling up the rear with lower than expected sales are Tom McCarthy's C, Damon Galgut's In a Strange Room (to be released in the U.S. on Oct. 20, 2010), and Andrea Levy's The Long Song.

Sales last week
Room - 3,451
The Finkler Question - 1,382
Parrot and Olivier in America - 1,088
C - 845
In a Strange Room - 760
The Long Song - 702

Surprisingly, Long-lister Christos Tsiolkas' Slap is out in front for Man-Booker sales this year.

On the low sales side of the Man-Booker long list is Lisa More's February. Sales were so poor, that many firsts were returned to the publisher and pulped, making this probably the rarest book on the list.  Firsts-in-Print has an ARC of this title for £30 on their Web site.

I also noticed first editions of Galgut's In a Strange Room are listing for $100+ on Amazon.

Collectors should be looking for first U.K. editions for these titles:

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