shocking entertainments (on literary fiction, pt. 5)

I've read none of the novels on this year's Man Booker Prize shortlist, but was very interested in the criteria for the shortlist, at least as expressed by Michael Portillo, "the chairman of this year's panel of judges," who, according to the New York Times, saw this year's shortlist as "a series of 'extraordinarily readable page-turners.'" Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger won the prize, according to Portillo, "because the judges felt that it shocked and entertained in equal measure."