The Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist was announced this morning, and it included a mix of “sure bets” and surprise nods. The biggest surprise, however, was the omission of Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood (McClelland & Stewart), which was widely considered the frontrunner going into the announcement. The five shortlisted titles are:

• Kim Echlin, The Disappeared (Penguin Canada)
• Annabel Lyon, The Golden Mean (Random House Canada)
• Linden MacIntyre, The Bishop’s Man (Random House Canada)
• Colin McAdam, Fall (Penguin Canada)
• Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault (McClelland & Stewart)

The shortlist, selected by Canadian author Alistair MacLeod, U.S. author Russell Banks, and U.K. author Victoria “Muskoka Chair” Glendinning, included no independent publishing houses. It also included the only two male authors to make the 12-title longlist, Linden MacIntyre and Colin McAdam. Titles left off the list include the aforementioned The Year of the Flood, Martha Baillie’s The Incident Report (Pedlar Press), Claire Holden Rothman’s The Heart Specialist (Cormorant Books), Shani Mootoo’s Valmiki’s Daughter (House of Anansi Press), Kate Pullinger’s The Mistress of Nothing (McArthur & Company), Jeanette Lynes’ The Factory Voice (Coteau Books), and Paulette Jiles’ The Colour of Lightning (HarperCollins Canada).

The winner of the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize will be announced on Nov. 10.

Last night, House of Anansi Press united readers and writers in discussions about books, writing, the Alice Hoffman Twitter freak out, and how incredibly long it takes to drive from downtown Toronto to Don Mills in rush-hour traffic. Anansi held an online contest to select eight readers to accompany the Anansi Girls (Emily Schultz, Lisa Moore, Karen Solie, and Shani Mootoo) on a “magic bus” (actually a white mini-coach bus) on a trip from the Anansi offices at 110 Spadina to the authors’ public reading at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Don Mills.

According to Julie Wilson, online content manager at Anansi, the press wanted to create an event around these four female authors to showcase their work, as well as to show support for indie bookseller McNally Robinson. In Wilson’s words: “Don Mills is not exactly local [...] so we thought the easiest thing to do is to just put people on a bus!”

After a long drive through the side streets of Toronto (as well as along the Bridle Path, where the authors muttered comments such as, “If your book sells really, really well, you too can live here!”), the readers and writers arrived in rainy Don Mills for the readings.