The chairman of the Man Booker prize panel described this year's shortlist, announced on Tuesday, as a "giant-killers' list." Few pundits disagreed with John Carey's assessment. Ditching the literary heavyweights - Martin Amis, JM Coetzee and Graham Swift - the judges produced a list featuring an unprecedented four women, three debut novels, and only one established writer, Margaret Atwood.

Monica Ali's Brick Lane, Atwood's Oryx and Crake, Damon Galgut's The Good Doctor, Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal, Clare Morrall's Astonishing Splashes of Colour and DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little made for a "fun, surprising shortlist", said the Daily Telegraph 's Kate Summerscale. "Though it seems to favour new, little-known or female novelists, this is in no way a fashionable or worthy list . . . The Man Booker should be prepared to champion good, difficult books - if it doesn't, which prize will? - but this year the best books might simply be the most enjoyable ones."

Tim Lott had also crossed his fingers for a readable shortlist. "The Booker prize has, for much of its history, been anthrax for the average reader," he moaned in the London Evening Standard . But last year's winner - Yann Martel's Life Of Pi - had shown "that the Booker is gradually waking up to the fact that readers count". With a little courage and vision, said Lott, the panel could "consign elitism to the dustbin for good . . . (and) make the Booker a prize not only for a great book but for a great read".

Robert McCrum, the Observer 's literary editor, joined Lott in the anti-elitist camp. Writing before the shortlist was published, he called on the powers-that-be at the Booker to widen the scope of the prize. After 35 years of championing Irish and Commonwealth literature, it was time the Booker acknowledged the "American contribution". Otherwise, he warned, this "cornerstone of our cultural heritage . . . will end up looking like a cross between a lottery and a road accident".

Celia Brayfield did not share McCrum's reverence. "I don't know who will win the Booker prize but I'll put money on one thing: it'll be ugly," she wrote in the Times . "There will be tantrums, bile, hissy fits, pouting, flouncing, foot-stamping, slagging-off, vile imputations, harsh words, character assassination and tears before bedtime." To be honest, she said, "I just wish they'd hurry up and hand over the bloody prize so that the lads can quit bitching." --Sam Jones