A novel book prize list

This year's Man Booker longlist is quite an expressive document. It's concise (13 titles) and contains only two well-known writers, Ian McEwan and A.N. Wilson. Plenty of others, including previous Booker winners such as Graham Swift, JM Coetzee and Pat Barker, had books that were eligible. But instead the judges have chosen younger, relatively unknown writers, few of them much reviewed yet.

Perhaps they are doing here what prize judges should do: reading freely, breaking away from routine respect for established reputations to find the best, regardless. If so, that's a real service to readers. Or just possibly the judges have been over-impressed by intriguing subject matter (growing up Asian in Cardiff, deformity in Bhopal, war on a South Pacific island)? Only one way to find out