Man Booker Prize longlist titles can now be read by everyone

For the first time ever, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is able to produce all the titles on the Man Booker Prize longlist in braille and giant print ensuring that blind and partially sighted people will be able to read and enjoy all the nominated books as the winning title is announced.

Thanks to the support of the Booker Prize Foundation and the Man Group plc
Charitable Trust, RNIB has produced braille, giant print and Talking Books of
the shortlisted titles for a number of years. And this year, with a generous
gift from an anonymous donor, RNIB is able to produce the remaining titles on
the longlist in accessible formats too. The winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize
for Fiction will be announced on Tuesday 12 October at a dinner at London's
Guildhall.

Bernard Cowell, a literature fan who is registered blind: "It was amazing to
receive Howard Jacobson's 'The Finkler Question' (Man Booker Prize winner 2010)
from the RNIB Talking Book service. We read it for my book club and I was so
happy to be able to discuss it with my friends. Sometimes being blind makes you
feel like you are two steps behind the rest of the world. RNIB strives to ensure
that we're not."

Accessible versions of the books will be available from October 2011 from
www.rnib.org.uk/shop

Help RNIB continue to provide reading services for blind and partially people. Join Read for RNIB Day on October 14, visit www.rnib.org.uk/readforrnibday

The Man Booker Prize was the first book prize to introduce a clause in their rules stating that publishers of longlisted books must provide an electronic file to RNIB to aid production of their books in accessible formats.

2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction - longlist

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry, On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch, Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
Yvvette Edwards, A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller, Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick, Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers, The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor, Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)