In the United Kingdom, where you can wager on such things, the betting money is on Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. As of Monday morning, the Ladbrokes betting site has the author of the "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' and "1Q84' as a five-to-two favorite to win. Over at the Boston Globe, Chris Wright points out that the British bookies making these odds probably haven't read most of the authors listed along with Murakami as potential favorites.

After Murakami, the Ladbrokes list is topped by Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro, American Joyce Carol Oates and the Hungarian novelist Peter Nadas, whose most recent novel, the 1,100-page "Parallel Stores,' includes a sex scene that's nearly 100 pages long.

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