A Lancaster author has today been shortlisted for this year's Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch is one of six novels in the running for the £50,000 prize.

Birch, 60, moved to the city with her family in 1989.

She is the author of nine previous novels, including Scapegallows and Turn Again Home, which was longlisted for the Booker in 2003.

Judges praised the "extraordinary" way that the author was able to conjure up "vivid colours in the book".

Even though it was set in a Dickensian world, it made the "strange feel very familiar", they said.

The winner will be announced on Tuesday, October 18 at a dinner at London’s Guildhall and will be broadcast on the BBC.