The Lost Man Booker Prize

The winner of the The Lost Man Booker Prize has been announced and it's Troubles by J.G. Farrell. I wrote about the shortlist here . I haven't read this book because I couldn't find a copy but it does sound intriguing.

From Amazon:
"Major Brendan Archer returns from the Great War to claim his fiancee, whose family owns the Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough, Ireland. She is strangely altered, however, along with the hotel, which is in spectacular decline — cats roam its upper stories, the Palm Court is a jungle, and the last guests are little old ladies with nowhere else to go. Outside the formerly grand hotel, the British Empire also totters."

Here is what Rachel Cooke, one of the judges, had to say about this book, "Each time I read it, it seems to grow more wonderful. I'm not sure that there is such a thing as a perfect book, but Troubles surely comes close. No word is out of place, no metaphor over-worked. It is original, wise, and unnervingly prescient. It is sometimes very funny, but this is a humour that only serves to make the book's sadness, which runs very deep, seem all the more profound. And it has one of the best - if not the best - ending of any novel I have read: high drama followed by a soaring epiphany. As I write this, I find myself thinking that I can't wait to read it again."