The Big Names Booker

This year's Booker prize longlist will no doubt please the booksellers. No small publishers (just big indies, Faber, Bloomsbury, Canongate; majors and imprints) - lets hope this is just an anomaly, not a trend - and most of the "big" names who released books that qualify, find themselves on the list - mammoth books by Paul Auster, and past-winner Arundhati Roy, alongside Zadie and Ali Smith, and acclaimed story writer George Saunders for his first novel, and probably favourite, Irish historical novelist Sebastian Barry. More interestingly perhaps, Jon McGregor makes an appearance with his new novel, "Reservoir 13" - his first for seven years - and Irish writer Mike McCormack's prize winning "Solar Bones" arrives a year late, after finding a British, as well as Irish publisher.

First thoughts on the Booker since it let in the Americans has been that they do a bit of cheese slicing, a third British, a third Commonwealth, and a third U.S.  It does seem increasingly an arbitrary list. In the past the Booker was notorious for longlisting books still in manuscript, so the general reader couldn't get to read them - this year both the Saunders, McCormack and Colson Whitehead's acclaimed "The Underground Railroad" feel like they've arrived here last on a very long tour. I guess we're all  a little fluid on when books are published these days. Naomi Alderman's "The Power" which won the Bailey's Prize is nowhere to be seen, surprisingly. As ever, the longlist is a little bit of a distraction - often it seems a little bit of a sop to newer writers, giving them a bit of time in the sun, this time its the bigger writers who may not make the cut.

There will be a couple of months for the longlist to get attention before the shortlist is announced. There's certainly enough interesting books on this year's list to make it potentially a break with the past but as Booker shortlisting is mostly about horse trading between several judges I wonder how that will manifest itself.

Our three big arts prizes - the Booker, the Turner, and the Mercuty, also released this week with a mix of Radio 1 pleasers (Alt-J, Ed Sheeran, Blossoms), and grime (Stormzy, J Hus) - seem to be struggling for relevance in an age where on the one hand the "game" is very much controlled by a non-pluralistic media, and on the other hand, where the best work is happening far away from the mainstream with little interest in being co-opted into "safe" spaces.