This year's judges ('Why no Sophie Dahl?' complained Ian Jack, editor of Granta) were Jack himself, as chair; Robert McCrum, The Observer's literary editor; Hilary Mantel, novelist and critic; Nicholas Clee, editor of the Bookseller; and Alex Clark, fiction reviewer for the Guardian and London Review of Books. They have been reading since September, when Jack and two assistants at Granta had already whittled down the original 140 submissions to around 50.