Switch to Desktop Site  Howard Jacobson turns the 2010 Man
Booker Prize into a laughing matter  (Read article summary)
Lefteris Pitarakis/AP  (Read caption) Howard Jacobson displays
his novel "The Finkler Question," the book that has made him the
42nd winner of the coveted Man Booker Prize.  About these ads
Many different adjectives have been used over the years to
describe the books that have won the Man Booker Prize, one of
the English-speaking world's most sought-after literary awards.
But "funny" has rarely been one of them. Until now.  British
novelist Howard Jacobson surprised much of the literary world by
becoming the 42nd winner of the £50,000 ($80,000) prize for "The
Finkler Question," a darkly comic novel that explores Jewish
life in Britain today along with questions about love, loss, and
male friendship.  The chair of the Booker judges, Sir Andrew
Motion, called "The Finkler Question" "a marvelous book: very
funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad, and very
subtle."  At 68, Jacobson is