Archive
Howard Jacobson amuses the judges
The 14th Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize - which includes a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig to be called after the novel, champagne and a complete collection of PG Wodehouse works - has been won for the second time by Howard Jacobson.
Zoo Time (Bloomsbury) is about novelist Guy Ableman who is in thrall to his vivacious wife Vanessa. The trouble is, he is no less in thrall to her alluring mother, Poppy. His publisher has committed suicide and his agent is in hiding. In flight from personal disappointment and universal despair, Guy wonders if it’s time to take his love for Poppy to another level
Jacobson previously won the prize, which rewards comic novels, in 2000 with his novel The Mighty Walzer. In 2007 he was shortlisted for the prize with Kalooki Nights.
This year’s judges were Radio 4 Today’s James Naughtie, publisher David Campbell from Everyman’s Library and Hay Festival director Peter Florence.
Food Writers Awards
The Guild of Food Writers Awards shortlists are out.
Cookery Book of the Year Award
Pomegranates and Roses: My Persian Family Recipes by Ariana Bundy (Simon & Schuster)
Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop (Bloomsbury)
Salt Sugar Smoke: How to Preserve Fruit, Vegetables, Meat and Fish by Diana Henry (Mitchell Beazley)
Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press)
Food Book of the Year Award
What to Eat? 10 Chewy Questions About Food by Hattie Ellis (Portobello Books)
What to Eat: Food that’s good for your health, pocket and plate by Joanna Blythman (4th Estate)
Consider the Fork: A History of Invention in the Kitchen by Bee Wilson (Particular Books)
Jeremy Round Award for Best First Book
The British Larder: A Cookbook For All Seasons by Madalene Bonvini-Hamel (Absolute Press)
The Art of the Restaurateur by Nicholas Lander (Phaidon)
The Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Catherine Phipps (Ebury Press)
Kate Whiteman Award for Work on Food and Travel
Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop (Bloomsbury Publishing)
“Exploring China: A Culinary Adventure presented by Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang” (Keo Films for BBC Two)
Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press)
Nod by Adrian Barnes
One of our favourite publishers Bluemoose Books have had some exciting news recently. Nod by Adrian Barnes has been shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award 2013, which awards the best Science Fiction Novel of the year.
Adrian is a Canadian writer and is only visiting the UK briefly to attend the awards next Wednesday, where the winner will be announced. He is only carrying out one book sigining while in the country and he is doing it in Leeds! Adrian will be at Waterstones on Albion Street from 12 – 2pm on Monday 29th April to sign copies of his book.
You can also borrow Nod from Leeds Libraries.
Diagram Prize – Cast Your Vote
Now is your chance to vote for the oddest book title of the year. The Diagram Prize has been running since 1978 and has awarded the prize to such books as Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers, Highlights in the History of Concrete and Bombproof Your Horse. Last year’s winner was the appealingly titled Cooking with Poo.
Philip Stone, the Diagram Prize’s co-ordinator, said: “People might think this prize is just a bit of fun, but I think it draws welcome attention to an undervalued art. Publishers and booksellers know only too well that a title can make all the difference to the sales of a book. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian has sold almost a million copies to date, while books such as Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared perhaps all owe some of their success to their unusual monikers.”
Shortlisted for the prize this year are the following six books; Was Hiter Ill?, Lofts of North America: Pigeon Lofts, God’s Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis, Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop, How Tea Cosies Changed the World and How to Sharpen Pencils.
I have my personal favourite but you can cast your own vote here.
CWA Dagger in the Library Award
Do you love Crime novels? Do you have a favourite author that don’t get the recognition that you feel they deserve?
The CWA Dagger in the Library Award nominations are now open. This award is unique as it is voted and judged by librarians and library users. To nominate an author, visit your local library and ask for a nomination form. Once completed, hand it back to the library staff and they will submit the form on your behalf.
Nominations close on the 1st April and the winner is announced in July at a prestigious ceremony in London. Previous winners have included Steve Mosby, Mo Hayder, Colin Cotterill, Stuart Macbride and Craig Russell.
Costa Book Awards Category Winners Announced
This year has proved to be good year for women writers in the Costas as women have written all five of the category winning books. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel is again proving extremely popular and picks up the award for Novel of the Year after winning the Man Booker Prize in 2012. The Biography of the Year was Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes by Mary Talbot, a graphic novel illustrated by her husband. The first novel award was The Innocents by Francesca Segal.
The Poetry Book of the year category was won by Kathleen Jamie for The Overhaul and the Children’s book category was won by Sally Gardner for her brilliant novel, Maggot Moon.
The overall winner will be announced on the 29th January and Hilary Mantel is the favourite to walk away with the prize. Last year’s winner was Pure by Andrew Miller.
All the books are available in our libraries. You can reserve a copy online and pick up from your nearest branch or mobile.
Carnegie Medal Longlist Announced
CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) have announced the longlist for this years Carnegie Medal. The Carnegie Medal is awarded annually to the writer of an outstanding book for children.
It was established by in 1936, in memory of the great Scottish-born philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). Carnegie set up more than 2800 libraries across the English speaking world and, by the time of his death, over half the library authorities in Great Britain had Carnegie libraries.
The books are judged by a panel of Children’s Librarians and children across the country will shadow the award, reading the books over the judging period. The shortlist is announced on March 19th 2013, with the winner announced in June 2013.
The list is too long to put here but follow the link to the Carnegie Medal press release to have a look , it might provide some interesting reading choices or might help if shopping for a teenager for Christmas.
Richard and Judy Autumn Book Club titles
The ten Richard & Judy’s Autumn Book Club titles have been announced, and they include debut novels such as Hannah Richell’s Secrets of the Tides as well as books by well established authors such as Robert Goddard and Helen Dunmore. As usual the list is a mix of different genres so there should be something there for everyone. More information about the books as well as reviews from Richard and Judy can be found online.
The full list is:
- Secrets of the Tides by Hannah Richell
- Between a Mother and her Child by Elizabeth Noble
- The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
- The Seamstress by Maria Duenas
- The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani
- Fault Line by Robert Goddard
- The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne
- The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore
- Double Cross by Ben Macintyre
- The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
Scottish Crime Book of the Year
The Scottish Crime Book of the Year award has been created by Bloody Scotland, the first international crime writing festival from north of the border.
The festival has attracted some big names, including Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre and Anne Perry. Full details of events are on the festival website, together with ticket information.
The Award seeks to recognise and reward excellence in Scottish crime writing. Books must be by writers born in Scotland, by writers living in Scotland, or set in Scotland to be eligible for the £3,000 prize.
The winner will be announced at the festival, which runs from September 14th – 16th in Stirling.
The shortlist in full:
A Foreign Country by Charles Cumming
Redemption by Will Jordan
The Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr
The Lewis Man by Peter May
Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina
Dead Men and Broken Hearts by Craig Russell
Reserve online, and collect from your nearest library.
Not the Booker Prize 2012 – get your nomination in now
Now that all the fuss over the Booker longlist has died down, The Guardian are once again running their really rather brilliant alternative prize.
Won last year by Michael Stewart’s King Crow, Not the Booker Prize seeks to unearth the year’s very best writing. With the coveted prize of a Guardian mug up for grabs, it’s a serious business.
I won’t even begin to attempt to explain the entire nomination procedure (you can find all the details on The Guardian’s site).
Suffice to say, the important thing for the moment is to nominate one book that you think should win. Post the author and title as a comment on The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize Page. You have around one week to do this, before round two beings, with a “longer list” of nominated titles.
So, if you’ve read something brilliant this year, and it has been shamefully overlooked by the official Booker judging panel, this is your chance to give it the recognition it deserves.
