The Best of Booker

It was announced on Thursday 21st February that there will be a one-off prize awarded this year to mark the 40th anniversary of the Man Booker Prize.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in April 1969, and will celebrate its 40th birthday by awarding a prize to the novel considered the best overall work to have won the prize in that time.

The Best of Booker winner will be announced in July, and the public will be able to vote for their favourite from a shortlist of six that will be announced by Victoria Glendinning in March.

Salman Rushdie's 1981 winner Midnight's Children is already the favourite to scoop this prestigious new prize - the same novel that won the Booker of Bookers Prize in 1993 to celebrate the 25th anniversary.

Have your say at the Man Booker website, and keep an eye on this page - I'll publish further details of the final six contenders as soon as I get them!