Bibliotheca - Book News » Book prize

Artichoke Hearts wins Children’s Book Prize

Alan — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 05:53:04 +0000

The poignant story of a girl’s relationship with her sick grandmother, Artichoke Hearts, earned author Sita Brahmachari the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize of £5,000. Her late mother-in-law, Rosie Harrison, an activist and artist was the inspiration for the novel. Because of the books portrayal of a positive relationship between grandchildren and grandparents and tackled head-on the difficulties of death, the judges gave great praise to the book and the prize was awarded by the Children’s Laureate, Anthony Browne at a ceremony in London.

This book is the most honest and emotional children’s book for quite some time and is impossible to read without crying, Waterstone’s children’s buying manager Sarah Clarke.

Clarke there should not be fear from parents in allowing their children to read real life tough drama at an early age.

This is a big jump from what children’s literature was some 50 years ago and children can deal with complex issues and sometimes adults and parents over look that. There is a lot more on television seen by children and in the news than in years past for example watching Eastenders will expose them to emotional and difficult issues to tackle.

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2010 Literary Review Bad Sex Award

Alan — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 06:28:57 +0000

Rowan Somerville is the winner of the 2010 Literary Review Bad Sex Award. The award was instituted in 1993. Its creator was, the now deceased, Auberon Waugh. Its stated purpose was to attract attention to rude, coarse, and even mechanical passages describing sex in modern literature. The job of the award was to discourage such writing and encourage unique and exceptional narrative about sexual conduct.

Somerville’s descriptive narrative, in one case describing a lover as screwing himself into a woman as a lepidopterist screws a blunt pin into a butterfly and in another where he compares pubic hair with vegetation, secured his win, although he just narrowed out Alastair Campbell for the novel, Maya.

This novel, The Shape of Her, is the second Somerville has penned. Upon accepting the award he noted that there isn’t anything he could think of being more English than poor sex.

Campbell did manage to beat out his one time boss, Tony Blair, by making the shortlist. Blair’s novel was in contention for his descriptive narrative of a 12 May 1994 night with his wife when he, “devoured it like a beast.”

The judges felt, however, that the sexual narrative in the book was simply too brief to deserve the shortlist. Campbell, they say, was passed over because of his blatant desire to win the award. He came right out and said that he wanted it. He nearly campaigned for it and the judges thought that awarding it to him would only encourage him to more unabashed excess.

The prize is usually given to serious works of literature, even though Campbell is among the minority of erotica authors to have got so far. Erotica, as a genre, is prohibited from the award, but Campbell has written it during his time as a columnist with Forum magazine.

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Costa Book Awards biography shortage

Alan — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 04:23:25 +0000

The Costa Book Awards have run into an interesting problem. The Costas are among the most prestigious book awards in the country and selects winners in 5 categories, which are novels, first novels, poetry, children’s books, and biographies. The tradition is to work down to 4 finalists in each category before a winner of each is chosen in all categories.

This year, however, judges had to acknowledge that from almost 100 hundred entries, they had only been able to find 3 biographies they had found of enough merit to short list. Two of the biographies, “My Father’s Fortune” by Michael Frayne, and “The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund de Waal, are memoirs. The third choice is an unusual biography on Montaigne entitled, “How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer.” It was written by Sarah Bakewell.

The judges offered that they were not attempting to make a statement by not picking a fourth biography as a finalist. They point out that under the awards rules there is no requirement that 4 finalists be chosen, even though it has been tradition over the years to do so.

One of the judges said that they were all simply in agreement that these were the best 3 books in the biography category and not a single judge would have been considering making any other a winner, so why choose a fourth?

The category winners have yet to be chosen, and the overall winner will be decided from those five. In terms of statistics, it is usually a novel that wins the overall.

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Stephen Fry Galaxy National Book Awards winner

Alan — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 13:06:26 +0000

The Galaxy National Book Awards featured some surprise winners. For instance, Stephen Fry won out over competition from Lord Sugar and Tony Blair to collect Biography of the Year, for his book, The Fry Chronicles. It was the second volume of his personal memoirs.

Celebrities from the book-publishing world came out to see veterans like Martin Amis and Terry Pratchett take honours for outstanding achievement.

Pratchett said that he was totally thrilled. He described his years of writing works like, Discworld, as doing something that one thoroughly enjoys and continuing to do it until someone hands you an award for doing it. There would have, however, been nothing else you so cared to do that you would have done it without acclaim or award.

David Nicholl’s book, One Day, received an award for best fiction.

Kate Atkinson, Maggie O’Farrell, and Hilary Mantel competed for author of the year, with Mantel pulling off the win. Andrew Marr won in the non-fiction category for writing The Making of Modern Britain.

Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson’s, Zog, was best children’s book. Writing about an accident ridden dragon, the pair responsible for, The Gruffalo, beat out Mr. Stink by comedian David Walliams.

Jonathan Franzen, from America, garnered the International Author’s award. Edmund de Waal won the New Writer Award for a book of memoirs entitled, The Hare With Amber Eyes.

The event was held at the BBC Television Centre in west London. David Baddiel hosted with Arlene Phillips, Richard E. Grant, and Claudia Winkelman among the guests.

The public will cast online votes for the ultimate Book of the Year award. The results will be announced 13 December.

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Booker prize goes to a funny book for the first time

Alan — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:29:06 +0000

The Booker prize was given to a funny book for the first time in its history. The author was the much-praised Howard Jacobson who won for his novel, “The Finkler Question.” Jacobson admitted having his heart set on winning the prize for many years, although he had never even been short listed.

At 68, he says he was beginning to get a little bitter, thinking he would always be known as the man who never received the Booker prize. He said it was getting tiresome to be spoken about constantly as the underrated author, Howard Jacobson, and now that he has finally won the Booker, maybe that moniker would finally go away.

He joked that he would buy his wife a handbag with the £50,000 prize.

A spokesman for the Booker prize said that the decision had been easy because it was simply the very best book. He wanted to make it clear that Jacobson had not won simply because they felt that I was his turn. He won strictly on the merit of the book.

The book is described as very funny and smart and it is widely noted that it delves into the depths of emotional that show the close link in our lives between comedy and tragedy. It is described as a very moving, adult read.

Guardian Saturday Review had very recently quoted Jacobson lamenting the condition of comic fiction today, commenting that it is not taken as serious writing. What a sweet thing winning the Booker prize must be after having felt that way.

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Philip Gross adds another award to a great year

Alan — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:06:56 +0000

Philip Gross has had a great year as the Glamorgan university professor won the TS Eliot prize in the face of many well known names and last night he added the coveted Welsh Book of the Year award to his list of accomplishments.

Gross took home the TS Eliot prize for his mediation book The Water Table and also added the Welsh award to his list last night which includes a £10,000 prize for his collection of poetry titled I Spy Pinhole Eye. The collection was written as an accompanist to the photographs of pylons shot by Simon Denison.

Although the judges rewarded Gross for his work, the poet stated that the book would have never occurred if not for the amazing and inspiring photographs by Denison.

Gross said he is not the sort of writer that looks for strong issues and themes but instead believes that if you find a rock and look at it harder enough it will reveal some information which is what happened when he took a look at the python. According to Gross, it was not the python itself that stood out, but instead the lump of concrete that is about as basic as you can get.

Novelist and Judge James Hawes stated that it was a close battle for the top slot between Gross and authors Terri Wiltshire and Nikolai Tolstoy who also made the shortlist.

Hawes continued to say that anyone that thinks the prizes are handouts should have seen the debate in the room as the judges made their final decision. He added that he hopes Gross will realize that this was a very hard decision to make and that his work truly shone out at the top.

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American witch-hunts novel takes Orange prize for fiction

Alan — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 03:21:37 +0000

A novel with ambition that takes on the communist American witch-hunts of the 1950s as well as the Mexican revolution was named the recipient of the Orange prize for fiction.

The Lacuna, written by Barbara Kingsolver, received the reward along with £30,000, which is not bad for the author’s first novel since 2000.

The novelist beat out competition from Lorrie Moore for her novel ‘A Gate at the Stairs” and Hillary Mantel for “Wolf Hall.” The award is considered to be the biggest offered solely to women writers.

Chair of judges for the Orange award this year TV producer Daisy Goodwin, stated that The Lacuna was breathtaking and poignant and added that the winner was really only a competition between the three books making it a bit like trying to choose between one’s own children.

Goodwin stated that in the end everyone was happy with the final choice of The Lacuna as the winner although all three of the novels were some of the best that she has read in quite a while.

The Lacuna is composed of diaries, newspaper reports, memoirs, and congressional transcripts and is demanding of the reader in that it needs to be read properly in prolonged stints, instead of in bits and pieces as time allows. It also takes on large subjects that still resonate throughout society today including notably the obsession with celebrity.

Also on the shortlist were Rosie Allison’s “The Very Thought of You,” Attica Locke’s “Black Water Rising,” and Monique Roffey’s “The White Woman on the Green Bicycle.”

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JG Farrell receives posthumous second Booker prize

Alan — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:02:40 +0000

30 years after JG Farrell passed away he has become a member of an exclusive club, those that have won two Booker prizes. Although it would seem that the author lost his shot to win another award after he died in a fishing accident in 1979, through a quirk of history his novel Troubles was offered a second shot.

The Lost Man Booker Prize, which he was the recipient of, was originally set up to award novels that had a publishing date in 1970 that were not considered due to a change in the rules. Thus, in 1971 it was decided that books would be judged from that year instead of the previous year.

Younger brother of the author, Richard Farrell, collected the prize in Central London stating that the success of the book helped to ease the sorrow of losing his brother. He also said that the moment was bittersweet since his brother, who battled polio as a child, had not survived to accept it himself.

The younger Farrell went on to say that the book is like a time machine and that his brother would not have been surprised at the prize, stating he always felt his books would be long lasting, and read long after his time.

Others that knew the author closely stated that Farrell would have loved the award and may have used his acceptance speech as a platform to launch into a political diatribe.

Farrell’s agent, Deborah Rogers, stated that Troubles was well received at the time but never truly got the acknowledgement that it deserved and that Farrell would be happy to see it finally appreciated.

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David Almond wins children’s book prize

Alan — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:57:48 +0000

David Almond, the British author of Skelig, was selected by children’s literature experts from around the globe as the winner of the most prestigious prize that can be won by a child author.

Previously, Almond has also been honoured with a Whitbread children’s prize and the Carnegie medal for Skellig which is the story of a young boy who finds an angel in his garage.

The award is given out by the International Board on Books for Young People for the complete repertoire of books that an author has completed and in the past has been awarded to Tove Jansson, Eleanor Farjeon, and Astrid Lindgreen.

Almond was surprised by his selection noting that it is amazing that he received the award. He stated that since he had not heard anything from the organizers of the prize he had figured that the winner was already selected and it was not him.

The jury on the award committee praised Almond for creating a magical coven for children that allowed their imaginations to mix reality with fantasy and stated that he has a unique voice that shines through in each of his novels. The jury also commented that he is a master of using language and that his works motivate children to critically think while reading.

Also announced today was the winner of a similar medal for illustrators, Jutta Bauer from Germany who was praised for her creativity, original approach, and ability to reach children through her illustrations.

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British authors perform well at NBCC

Alan — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:59:17 +0000

The British made a strong showing at the National Book Critics’ Circle awards this year.

The NBCC is a non-profit organization of editors and critics based in New York, and accepts nominations and submissions from authors worldwide, as long as the material is published in the U.S.

Three of the six prizes awarded at the March ceremony were to British authors: Hilary Mantel, Richard Holmes and Diana Athill.

Hilary Mantel’s win was for Wolf Hall, which also garnered the prestigious Man Booker prize last year. She is working on a sequel to Wolf Hall, an historical novel about Thomas Cromwell; she says that she originally intended to combine the two, but publishers in both the U.K. and the U.S. encouraged her to start a second volume.

Mantel said that she is surprised and pleased at the reaction of U.S. readers to her perspective on the Tudor era in British history and Cromwell’s part in it.

Richard Holmes took the prize for non-fiction with The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. His book, which focuses on notable British scientists around the turn of the 19^th century, explores the relationship between romance and science in a new and engrossing approach.

Diana Athill’s Somewhere Towards the End, written about the late stages of her life, won in the autobiography category. She is now 91 years old, and wonderfully feisty and “unmawkish” in her attitudes and commentary.

In one interview, Mantel expressed her gratification about the choices made by the NBCC. She feels that the Association’s board of reviewers provides an impartial and perceptive judgment offered by professionals in the field.

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