While Indian writers have done well in the prize recently, winning in 2006 and 2008, this year's list is notable for its absence of Asian writers.

“House of Meetings” is a singular, unimpeachable triumph, as powerful as J.M. Coetzee's “Disgrace” and the small list of novels that have unanimously carried off[8] the Man Booker prize for fiction.

SIR PAUL NURSE boasts a long list of academic accolades, among them a Nobel Prize, but his chummy manner and oodles of scientific star power have earned him the nickname "David Beckham of science".