We cover a decent number of literary awards here at The Millions, but we, like most magazines, have a tendency to focus on the present. At the LARB, Andrew Nicholls makes up for this by recounting the very first book awards, in which Mooluu’s “The Beast Attacked” goes head-to-head with Kurtan the Elder’s “Why Half My Face is Missing.” You could also read our own Mark O’Connell on why we care about literary prizes to begin with.
Best Original Cave Painting
Getcha Popcorn Ready
Think of this as the film world’s equivalent of our Great Book Preview: Metacritic pores over the “50 Most-Anticipated Films” of the coming year.
“I was going to be an essayist, and it was going to be awesome.”
Nonfiction writing might work wonders for history books, but the heart of the genre is still the essay. In a piece for The Morning News Martin Connelly discusses his youthful resolution to be an essayist, which he quickly forgot and then gradually remembered. There are also ironic license plates, convicts and a baby, just to jazz everything up a little bit.
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Kirkus Prize Finalists Announced
Starting this year, Kirkus Reviews will award the impressive sum of $50,000 each to three winners of their new Kirkus Prize, which recognizes works of fiction, nonfiction and children’s literature. This morning, they announced their first-ever batch of finalists, a long list including a few names who should be familiar to Millions readers: Elizabeth Kolbert (for The Sixth Extinction, which we published an essay about); Year in Reading alum Sarah Waters (for The Paying Guests); Thomas Piketty (for Capital in the 21st Century); New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast (for her memoir); and Siri Hustvedt (for The Blazing World, which we reviewed). Their judges will announce the winners on October 23rd.
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Susan Orlean’s Obsessions
The Rumpus interviews Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief & most recently Rin Tin Tin) about her obsession with other people’s obsessions.
There’s A New Oz in Town
The new Wizard of Oz prequel, Oz: The Great and Powerful, which stars Mila Kunis and James Franco among others, has its first official trailer. The film will release in 2013.
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You Know AP and Chicago Style. Now learn CIA style.
Among the recommendations and rules listed in the CIA’s official style guide: favor the active voice; keep sentences and paragraphs short; boats should not be referred to with gendered pronouns; and the “w” in “Vietnam war” should be lower case because war wasn’t officially declared.