Yann Martel's Life of Pi won this year's Booker Prize. The award has given Pi a sales boost on Amazon (#17 as of this post). Since it's fiction, I'm not really interested in the book, but this paragraph from the BBC story piqued my interest:
Betting on the prize was suspended well ahead of Tuesday night's event after a "dummy" web page was put online, which revealed the winner as Martel.Organisers of the prize said this had been an internal mistake and denied the winner was already known, explaining the judges would not make their final decision until the day of the ceremony.
And the judges maintained their final decision was only made at 1830 BST on Tuesday night.
Those Brits will bet on anything.
"Joyful Martel wins Booker"
Article comments
1 - James Russell
"And the judges maintained their final decision was only made at 1830 BST on Tuesday night." My arse it was.
2 - Kenan Hebert
I, for one, am thrilled that this book's sales are climbing so astronomically. That's one of the stated goals of the Booker Prize, after all, to recognize overlooked fiction. Same reason Martin Amis or Julian Barnes haven't won it yet.