Natasha Brown, a British author who is chairing this year’s judging panel, said in a news release on Tuesday that many of the 128 books considered for this year’s prize had examined the consequences of war. Although that topic is the focus of some of the 13 titles that made the cut, Brown said they also featured “petty squabbles between neighbors, mysterious mountain villages, Big Pharma conspiracies, witchy women, ill-fated lovers, a haunted prison and obscure film references.”