The Man Booker Prize this year was given to a dark horse winner, The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson. Long praised for his comic novels and a favorite of such writers as Jonathan Safra Foer, this was the first time Jacobson was shortlisted for the prize, though an earlier novel, Kalooki Nights, made the longlist. His novel has only just been released in the U.S., but judging by sales of previous winners this is sure to become a bestseller. The novel follows three friends who gather one night to reminisce about their lives; one is robbed on his way home and from there unspools a work hailed by the Booker prize Chairman, Sir Andrew Motion, as, “very clever and very funny.” Undoubtedly Howard Jacobson is biting his own tongue after bemoaning that comic fiction wasn’t taken more seriously in last week’s Guardian.