From the BBC: Marlon James, a writer who has been compared to Toni Morrison and Quentin Tarantino, won the Booker for A Brief History of Seven Killings, which means he gets £50,000 (~one hundred million dollars? no one has time for these conversions), lots of polite clapping, and a heap of prestige.

Here's a brief interview with James, who talks about the wildness of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, the event upon which the plot of the book is based:


I haven't read the book yet, but my bookish friends and colleagues have described it as "the best thing I read this year," and "super good." When I told one member of my reading circle that I hadn't read it yet, he hung his head and made his hand into a fist.

The description of the book on Elliott Bay Book Company's website mentions that Seven Killings has been named a best book of the year by venerable institutions such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Time, and Newsweek. And Michael Wood, who was the leader of the judges for this year's prize, was quoted in that BBC article as saying that the book is "very violent" and "full of swearing," which nudges it up to the top of my Gotta Read list.