Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children crowned Best of the Booker

The Best of the Booker is a one-off celebratory award to mark the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize. A shortlist for the award was announced on the 12th of May 2008. The six shortlisted books, chosen from the list of 41 Booker Prize and Man Booker Prize winners, were:
Pat Barker's The Ghost Road
Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda
JM Coetzee's Disgrace
JG Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur
Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children
The public were asked to cast their vote through online partnerships with national and international media, with libraries, reading groups and book retailers, which gave millions of people across the globe the opportunity of registering their votes for their favourite book from the shortlist.
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children was crowned the Best of the Booker when voting closed at midday on 8 July. Over 7800 people had voted online and by SMS for the six shortlisted titles, with 36% voting for Midnight's Children. Votes flooded in from across the world with 37% of online votes coming from the UK, followed by 27% from North America.