Five Sixth Formers and one teacher were in the library to give personal reviews of the contenders for this year's Booker Prize for Fiction this week.
More than fifty years after it was founded, the Booker prize for fiction remains Britain's best known and most prestigious literary prize. The Booker has long been established as a prize with a reputation for rewarding novels that are both long and written in adventurous and unconventional ways. So the task of reviewing the shortlist can often be challenging.
As always however, Harrodian's student reviewers Asia, Angelica, Ioanna, Alfie and James were more than up to the task, analysing and speaking confidently about a collection that ranged from an update of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn (James by Percival Everett) through an unusual take on the spy thriller (Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake) to the dreamlike Held (by Canadian Poet, Anne Michaels).
English teacher Mr Mark McDowall oversaw proceedings and was impressed by the eloquent and confident delivery of all five reviewers.
The winner will be announced on 12th November at a ceremony in Old Billingsgate, London. James is the bookies' favourite but the Booker jury (this year led by Ceramicist and writer Edmund de Waal) often has a habit of defying the bookmakers.