Join the Not the Booker prize judges

The Not the Booker prize is working. Thanks to the enthusiasm, eloquence and good taste of you, the reader there's now a very impressive longlist of books to consider. A list that is far longer than the official Man Booker prize so-called longlist. So, hurray for us.

Admittedly, getting to this stage wasn't an entirely smooth ride. There was some confusion over the one-nomination-per-person stipulation in the rules and the fact that books only needed to be nominated once in order to make it through to the next (ie, this) round. Typically, most of that confusion was my fault. All the same, thanks to some sharp police work by the moderators and other people who actually read the rules properly things still worked effectively enough that we now have an excellent list of eligible books. The only sadness is that not all of those nominated qualified for inclusion, due to the limitations on dates and availability in the UK (and special thanks must go to poster johnselfasylum for playing detective and weeding out the ineligible books). So if your favourite isn't here, that's probably why. And there are still a mighty 46 to choose from, so hopefully you'll be able to find something else you like.

Interestingly, the Booker books appear to have been fairly popular. Certainly, judging by the enthusiasm of the early nominations I'd be tempted to label the bookie's Booker favourite, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, the favourite here too. AS Byatt's The Children's Book appears to be running it a close second. I can't decide if that's a boring or an interesting outcome. I think I lean on the side of interesting. I certainly wouldn't have predicted before the event that we were all actually going to agree with the Booker panel. It's also notable that Sarah Hall made a late entry, Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn slipped in early on and Summertime by JM Coetzee is also in the mix – although the latter is at something of a disadvantage because it hasn't yet been published.

Elsewhere, the books in contention are multi-format and multifarious. They range from adult space operas to worldly children's morality tales with all shades of literary fiction in between. They are published by small presses and giant corporations alike.

Speaking personally, there are dozens of books that I have never heard of. There are only two that I have read (Tony O'Neill's Down and Out on Murder Mile and Simon Crump's Neverland, both of which I like.) I imagine most others are in a similar position … And this is where round two of the process gets interesting.

We're working on a system of one person, one vote, so of course, if you have a favourite all you have to do is to cast your lot in its favour by writing the word "Vote" followed by the name of the book and the author. If you bold up the word, vote, so much the better. The voting closes at midnight on 23 August, so don't sleep.

If you are undecided, however, you might like to ask a few leading questions from those who have plumped for a favourite. Maybe they can persuade you to look their favourites over and come back here in a few days and vote for them. Do also read over the nominations on the original post, many of which give excellent reasons for supporting the chosen books.

Meanwhile, if you think that your favourite book is being unfairly ignored, do feel free to lobby on its behalf. Just so long as you don't do anything that isn't covered by the very interesting terms and conditions.

At the end of the process, the six books with the most nominations will go through to round two. I'll read them – and hopefully you'll be able to read some along with me. Then we'll discuss them individually here, before moving onto the exciting final round of voting.

Before we get to that stage, the list:

1.Ghosts and Lightening by Trevor Byrne
2.Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
3.Map Of The Invisible World by Tash Aw
4.Summertime by JM Coetzee
5.The City and The City by China Miéville
6.John The Revelator by Peter Murphy
7.Solo by Rana Dasgupta
8.The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
9.Jerusalem by Patrick Neate
10.Spirit by Gwyneth Jones
11.This Is How by MJ Hyland
12.The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan
13.The White Woman On The Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey
14.The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
15.The Harrowing by Robert Dinsdale
16.Hodd by Adam Thorpe
17.The Tin-Kin by Eleanor Thom
18.The Winter Vault by Anne Michael
19.White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
20.The Father Of Locks by Andrew Killeen
21.The Children's Book by AS Byatt
22.Stone's Fall by Iain Pears
23.Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
24.Down On Out On Murder Mile by Tony O'Neill
25.Rose by Gillian Green
26.Cockroach by Rawi Hage
27.Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
28.Grace, Lamar and Laszlo The Beautiful by Deborah Kay Davies
29.Ten Storey Love Song by Richard Milward
30.Mark Illis by Tender
31.Jeff In Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
32.Little Gods by Anne Richards
33.A Kind Of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
34.Great Waters by Kit Whitfield
35.Black Rock by Amanda Smyth
36.Red Dog, Red Dog by Patrick Lane
37.Harare North by Brian Chickwava
38.Generation A by Douglas Coupland
39.Tomas by James Palumbo
40.Neverland by Simon Crump
41.The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville
42.All The Colours Of The Town by Liam McIvanney
43.Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
44.Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
45.The Outlander by Gil Adamson
46.How To Paint A Dead Man by Sarah Hall

What do you make of that?