[nilesfunnies] The Man Booker Prize was won last night

The Man Booker Prize was won last night by John Banville
<http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/banville.html> for The Sea.
Here are a few features of the book that seem to have passed many other
commentators by (although I suspect that Grumpy Old Bookman
<http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/2005/10/booker-prize.html> has
noticed them, but does not care.)

The Sea is the first Booker winner to have a title consisting of exactly
half of a previous winner's title (Iris Murdoch
<http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-113,00.html>'s The
Sea, The Sea won in 1978).

The Sea is the 13th winner to start with The
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The>. Since there have been 39 winners
since the prize began this is a hit rate of exactly one in three.

The Sea is the shortest winning title (6 letters and a space) since John
Berger <http://www.johnberger.org/>'s G in 1972. It is the 8th winner to
have a two word title. There have been 6 winners with one word titles
(including Berger's.)

John Banville is the second person called John to win the Booker (he is
also the first person called Banville to win it, but that is less
remarkable.) J M Coetzee
<http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2003/> is named John, but
calls himself J M, which is why he doesn't count.

John Banville is the first male writer to win the Booker in a year
ending in 5 (years ending in 0 have also been good for women, with only
William Golding
<http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1983/golding-bio.html> in
1980 bucking the trend.)

No Booker prize winner has had the word or in the title. I don't think
that any have featured an elephant in a leading role, although Yann
Martel
<http://books.guardian.co.uk/bookerprize2002/story/0,12350,817341,00.html>'s

Life of Pi was originally going to have one instead of a tiger.