In 1971, rules for the Man Booker Prize changed. The prize was no longer given retrospectively, but became an award for the best novel in the year it was published.

Since many books published in 1970 were left out of consideration due to the timing of the rule change, the prize organizers decided to recognize outstanding books from that year. “Recognition for these novels and the eventual winner is long overdue,” said Ion Trewin, literary director of the Man Booker prizes. The Lost Man Booker Prize is the third time that special recognition has been given in the history of the awards.

The shortlist will be announced in March at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival. The award recipient will be chosen by the public, then announced in May. The winner will receive a designer bound copy of his or her novel.

The longlist contains 22 novels, including:

Brian Aldiss, The Hand Reared Boy
H.E. Bates, A Little Of What You Fancy?
Nina Bawden, The Birds On The Trees
Melvyn Bragg, A Place In England
Christy Brown, Down All The Days
Len Deighton, Bomber
J.G. Farrell, Troubles
Elaine Feinstein, The Circle
Shirley Hazzard, The Bay Of Noon
Reginald Hill, A Clubbable Woman
Susan Hill, I’m The King Of The Castle
Francis King, A Domestic Animal
Margaret Laurence, The Fire Dwellers
David Lodge, Out Of The Shelter
Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat
Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies
Patrick O’Brian, Master and Commander
Joe Orton, Head To Toe
Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven
Ruth Rendell, A Guilty Thing Surprised
Muriel Spark, The Driver’s Seat
Patrick White, The Vivisector

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Wolf Hall, a novel by Hilary Mantel that won the 2009 Man Booker Prize, is still missing the “Add to Shopping Cart” button on Amazon.com. The Politician, the recently released tell-all by former U.S. senator John Edwards’ former aide Andrew Young, is also missing its button. Both books are published by Macmillan imprints. The publisher and Amazon are apparently still trying to work out their dispute over e-book pricing.

Many writers’ guilds are showing their support of Macmillan in this battle. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America removed Amazon.com purchase links from its website with a statement that reads:

Our authors depend on people buying their books and since a significant percentage of them publish through Macmillan or its subsidiaries, we would prefer to send traffic to stores where the books can actually be purchased.

To that end, our volunteers are in the process of redirecting book links to indiebound.org, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and Borders.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of HarperCollins’ parent company News Corp., said that he too plans to renegotiate e-book prices with Amazon soon. “We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99,” he said. “We think it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books.”

TechCrunch points out that one of the winners in this dispute is Barnes & Noble. The Politician currently has #1 sales rank on the Barnes & Noble website. It ranks pretty highly at Borders’ website as well.