Booker Short List

This is the sort of list that bugs me a bit. It provokes questions such as:

Am I really interested in the legacy of the Cultural Revolution?

Am I really interested in nine stories about male protagonists?

Perhaps I am tempted a little by multiple homicide in the 19th century...

Or maybe, just maybe, a girl at a juvenile detention center...

• The Canadian author Madeleine Thien’s “Do Not Say We Have Nothing,” about the legacy of the Cultural Revolution in China.
• The American writer Paul Beatty’s “The Sellout,” a satire on black life in the United States.
• The Canadian-British author David Szalay’s “All That Man Is,” a series of nine stories about male protagonists.
• The Scottish writer Graeme Macrae Burnet’s “His Bloody Project,” a historical thriller inspired by a multiple homicide in the 19th century.
• The South African-born British novelist Deborah Levy’s “Hot Milk,” a coming-of-age story about a young Anglo-Greek woman.
•  “Eileen,” the debut novel by the American author Ottessa Moshfegh, which centers on a young woman working at a juvenile detention center in 1960s New England.