The Guardian has a story on an interesting literary award. The International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award starts out with nominations from 162 libraries all over the world, which makes for a huge and eclectic longlist. The list of nominations includes everything under the sun. Or you can check out which libraries in which countries like which books. It’s sort of like a lesson in literary geography. Baudolino by Umberto Eco is apparently favored to win. Out of the three or four books on the list that I’ve read my favorite was probably The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster.
Interesting Award
The Booker’s Dozen: The 2010 Booker Longlist
With the unveiling of the Booker Prize longlist, the 2010 literary Prize season is officially underway. As is typically the case, the list offers a mix of exciting new names, relative unknowns and beloved standbys. The instant favorites to win for most readers will be David Mitchell, Peter Carey, and, though he is something of a newly minted literary superstar, Tom McCarthy. Several of the books named appeared on our “most anticipated” lists for the first and second halves of 2010.
All the Booker Prize longlisters are below (with excerpts where available):
Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (excerpt)
Room by Emma Donoghue (excerpt)
The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore (excerpt)
In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut (excerpt)
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
The Long Song by Andrea Levy (excerpt)
C by Tom McCarthy
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (excerpt)
February by Lisa Moore (excerpt)
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray (excerpt)
Trespass by Rose Tremain (excerpt [scroll down])
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (excerpt)
The Stars in the Bright Sky by Alan Warner
Eisenberg Wins the PEN/Faulkner
Deborah Eisenberg has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg. (Eisenberg profiled at The Millions.)
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McCann Wins National Book Award
The National Book Award winners for 2009 have been announced. The big prize for fiction went to Colum McCann for Let the Great World Spin. McCann was the highest profile name among the nominees, and his book which revolves around Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between World Trade Center towers in 1974, was generally seen as the favorite. More on the book: excerpt, review, Most Anticipated.
In this age of tycoons, fallen and otherwise, it is perhaps fitting that the non-fiction award went to The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles (excerpt). The Poetry award was won by Keith Waldrop for Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (excerpt [pdf]). The winner in the Young People’s Literature category was Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose, a true story about a teenager who played a pivotal, but now forgotten role in the civil rights movement (excerpt).
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On Spinach and the National Book Awards
I want to live in a world – and I believe we're closer than we think – where “the reading public” consumes, likes, and engages with many different kinds of literary nourishment; and where writers, teachers, and critics trust and even expect readers to do so.
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National Book Award Finalists Announced
Award season is in full swing now. The Booker was awarded yesterday, and the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature will be announced tomorrow or soon after, but today is all about the finalists for the National Book Award. As Ed remarked, in so many words, for the second year in a row, the judges have managed to deliver a crop of fiction finalists that satisfyingly occupy the sweet spot between obscurity and being, well, too obvious. On to the finalists in all categories, and, where available, excerpts from the books.Fiction:Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski – an excerpt of sortsA Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus – excerptThe Echo Maker by Richard Powers – (very short) excerptEat the Document by Dana Spiotta – excerptThe Zero by Jess Walter – excerptNon-fiction:At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 by Taylor Branch – excerptImperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran – excerpt 1, 2The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan – excerptOracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present by Peter Hessler – excerptThe Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright – excerptPoetry:Averno by Louise Gluck – poemChromatic by H.L. HixAngle of Yaw by Ben Lerner – poemsSplay Anthem by Nathaniel Mackey – poemCapacity by James McMichael – poemYoung People’s Literature:The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson – excerptKeturah and Lord Death by Martine LeavittSold by Patricia McCormick – excerptThe Rules of Survival by Nancy WerlinAmerican Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang – pages
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