Monday, June 29, 2009

Dundee International Book Prize for Emerging Writers Winner

Tragic always thought that Dundee in Scotland was a quiet sort of city and has enjoyed a few pleasant visits there over the years. Judging by the drama inherent in the novels produced by local writers about the city and its history, it appears that he is quite mistaken. The recently announced winner of the Dundee International Book Prize for emerging writers , awarded during the Literary Dundee Festival, is no exception.

Local crime writer, Chris Longmuir (left) has won the 2009 Dundee International Book Prize for her gritty crime novel Dead Wood.

Dead Wood was selected from over a hundred entries . She received a £10,000 cash prize and a publishing contract with Birlinn Ltd, publishers of the Polygon imprint, Ms. Longmuir said that she is: “ Over the moon. It really has been a long haul and it feels so fantastic to see my book on the shelves of local bookstores.” Wonderful. Tragic imagines there have been a few sheets ripped from the typewriter in frustration over the years to get to this point.

Tragic enjoyed reading, Claire-Marie Watson's - The Curewife, a winner back in 2002. The award has been given every couple of years since 2000 but is due to be awarded annually from next year. Excellent, too few awards for emerging writers.

One thing that does bemuse Tragic is why the prize is called the Dundee International Book Prize when the the subject matter, and the authors, are all so very local?

Tragic has put up summary page for the Dundee at Literary Awards UK and provides a brief description of the Dundee Literary Festival at Literary Festivals UK. The latter is all over for another year (ended 28th June), but sounded like a fine affair.

About Dead Wood - [ can't find any cover art)

The winning novel Dead Wood, set in the industrial city of Dundee, begs the question; what happens when the cold, calculating world of gangland retribution collides with the psychosis of a serial killer?

In a grim Dundee of urban decay and criminal deprivation what happens when the cold, calculating world of gangland retribution collides with the psychosis of a serial killer? Kara has a debt to gangster Tony and takes to the streets to earn the cash. On a job she encounters the killer's victims' dumped in the woods just outside the city. Terrified, she escapes, making an anonymous phone call to the police. An investigation led by newcomer DC Louise Walker begins, but she is not the only one determined to catch the killer. Tony, devastated to learn that his daughter is one of the victims, vows revenge. Who will find the killer first? And what kind of justice will prevail? More

Previous Winners

ISBN: 9781846970009 - The Triple Point of Water2007 - Fiona Dunscombe - The Triple Point of Water

The novel tells the story of Harri, a stripper who believes in magic and is haunted by two very different images of her father. Her friend, Saf, searches among London's homeless for a dad she no longer remembers, whilst another young woman struggles to come to terms with what her father does for a living. In a decade presided over by Britain's first female prime-minister, absent fathers, fantasy fathers, psuedo fathers, religious, and transgressive fathers, haunt and protect, love, lie and desert; Harri's task is to find her own identity somewhere between them.

Growing up in rural Nottinghamshire, Arabella Cordon sees life through a filter of fairytales. She idolises her father, but his enthusiasm is reserved for steam engines, motorcycles and Margaret Thatcher. On the day Thatcher comes to power, Arabella's life changes irrevocably. Alone and adrift in London, she takes a job as a striptease artist in Soho and makes friends with Saf, who is searching for her lost father amongst the city's homeless. Unlike Saf, Arabella is determined to leave the past behind, but she is haunted by the ghosts of fathers - missing fathers, pseudo fathers, fantasy fathers. In the icy years presided over by Britain's first female prime minister, Arabella's own identity and survival are inextricably linked to the question of what a father is. More

2005 - Malcolm Archibald - Whales for the Wizard.

ISBN: 9781904598404 - Whales for the WizardThe adventure story is based around the whaling industry in Dundee in the 1860’s and its fast-paced and detailed narrative truly captures the spirit of the time.

Set in 1860, Whales for the Wizard is a novel of intrigue and mystery. Returning to Dundee after years in the army, Robert Douglas finds employment with George Gilbride, a whaling-ship owner and businessman, but falls foul of the sinister John Wyllie. Drugged by Wyllie, Douglas awakes on board the steam-whaler Redgauntlet, bound for the Arctic, to realise that many of his companions believe the ship is haunted and do not expect to return.

The voyage sees the unravelling of a year-old mystery as Douglas clashes with, then befriends 'Bully' Houston, the ship's mate, and together they locate a sister ship that was believed lost in the ice. By finding clues from various sources, they decide that Wyllie was the source of many unpleasant happenings, and their respect deepens on a difficult journey homewards.

Their problems are not resolved until they return to Dundee, when Gilbride's daughter Ellen helps to solve the final mystery and they discover the real force behind their problems. Whales for the Wizard combines a sea story with the atmosphere of an industrial city undergoing immense change. More

ISBN: 9780954407544 - The Curewife2002 - Claire-Marie Watson - The Curewife

The Curewife - In the reign of Charles I, Grissel Jaffray, The Curewife, arrived in Dundee as a new bride. This compelling story, based on the very few known facts about her life, graphically depicts seventeenth-century Dundee: a time of war, plague, political turmoil, and fanatical witch-hunts.

The Curewife is the story of Grissel Jaffray, the last woman to be burnt as a witch in Dundee. Her story is brought to light by the chance discovery of an ancient diary in modern day Connecticut. Through the transcription of this diary, a powerful narrative unfolds. Grissel Jaffray has inherited a legacy of 'uncommon sagacity': the accumulated knowledge of her forebears who have the gift of healing and practiced withcraft for more than three centuries. Grissel is a woman of keen intelligence whose fictional journal graphically depicts life in seventeenth-century Dundee: a land of war, plague, political turmoil, and fanatical witch-hunts. The struggle for survival echoes down the years to trouble the last of her tormented line. Now the place is New England, a place of peace prosperity and endless possibility. Her descendants' stories, told in parallel with main narrative, bring ancient fears to today's business world.Winner of the Dundee Book Prize 2002. More

2000 - Andrew MurraISBN: 9780748662692 - Tumulusy Scott won the first Dundee Book Prize with his novel Tumulus

Tumulus - the name refers to an ancient burial mound - is a tale in two parts. The first tells the storyvia the narrator, the second investigates it. Tumulus details bohemian Dundee through the 60s and 70s to the present day blending fact, myth, pub tales and autobiograhical account. Andrew Murray Scott is a graduate of the University of Dundee and now works as a press officer. Three further novels by Andrew have been published; 'Estuary Blue', 'The Mushroom Club' and 'The Big J'.

An enigmatic and prize-winning first novel from a vibrant new voice on the fiction scene: Andrew Murray Scott. Tumulus tells the story of an archivist, Stella Auld, who, in the course of putting together an exhibition focusing on 70s urban culture, unearths a mysterious manuscript from that psychedelic decade. Enthralled by the outrageous accounts of parties, urban myth, drug-taking, drunken heroism and artistic ambitionthe manuscript contains, she decides to embark upon an investigation to track down the author. But, as many false trails and versions of the truth start to appear through her investigations, and as the boundaries between the fictional lives of the characters and Stella's own reality begin to break down, her sanity begins to suffer... Does she really walk two miles naked in the dark to burrow her way inside an archaeological site - or was that a dream? In the end she is forced to make an appeal to the reader to solve the enigma at the heart of the novel. This is a riotous and hilarious account of a middle-aged woman forced to reassess her conception of herself as a respectable citizen. A mix of raw humor, irony, black sarcasm and enigma, Tumulus presents the reader with a literary puzzle, stories within stories, and a mystery within a mystery. This is experimental modern fiction at its most stylish and unexpected.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2010 - Contenders

Always an event of importance in Literary Award World, the Hans Christian Andersen Awards announced their 2010 contenders a few months back. Posted here by request. Tragic maintains a summary page at Book Awards Online where there are some slideshows displaying the cover art from winning authors and illustrators over the years. Delicious.

Presented every two years by IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important and lasting contribution to children's literature. IBBY National Sections from 33 countries have made their selections, submitting the following 29 authors and 27 illustrators as candidates for the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Awards:
Country
Author
Illustrator
Argentina
Liliana Bodoc
Luis Scafati
Austria
Heinz Janisch
Linda Wolfsgruber
Belgium
Pierre Coran
Carll Cneut
Brazil
Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós
Roger Mello
Canada
Brian Doyle
Marie-Louise Gay
China
Liu Xianping

Croatia

Svjetlan Junakóvić
Cyprus
Maria Pyliotou

Czech Republic
Pavel Šrut
Jiří Šalamoun
Denmark
Louis Jensen
Lilian Brøgger
Finland
Hannu Mäkelä
Salla Savolainen
France
Jean-Claude Mourlevat
Grégoire Solotareff
Germany
Peter Härtling
Jutta Bauer
Greece
Loty Petrovits-Andrutsopulou
Diatsenta Parissi
Iran
Ahmad Reza Ahmadi

Ireland
Eoin Colfer
P.J. Lynch
Japan
Shuntaro Tanikawa
Akiko Hayashi
Lithuania

Kęstutis Kasparavičius
Mexico
Alberto Blanco
Fabricio Vanden Broeck
Mongolia
Dashdondog Jamba

Netherlands
Peter van Gestel
Harrie Geelen
Norway
Bjørn Sortland
Thore Hansen
Russia

Nickolay Popov
Serbia
Zoran Božović

Slovak Republic
Ján Uličiansky
Peter Uchnár
Slovenia
Tone Pavček
Ančka Gošnik Godec
Spain
Jordi Sierra i Fabra
Xan López Domínguez
Sweden
Lennart Hellsing
Anna-Clara Tidholm
Switzerland

Etienne Delessert
Turkey
Muzaffer İzgü
Can Göknil
Uganda
Evangeline Ledi Barongo

United Kingdom
David Almond
Michael Foreman
USA
Walter Dean Myers
Eric Carle

The elected Chair of the International Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury, Zohreh Ghaeni (Iran) and Jury members from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States of America, will meet in March 2010 to select from among these 56 nominations the winners of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Awards.

The results will be made public at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, Monday, 22 March 2010 and the Awards will be presented to the winners at the 32nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain on 11 September 2010

UK Carnegie and Greenaway Medal Winners vs Caldecott, Newberry et al


The Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal (Illustration) are probably the United Kingdoms two most anticipated, and certainly most prestigious Children's Book Awards. They have just released their winners for 2009.

In Tragic's opinion, the Carnegie and Greenaway are directly comparable to the United State's Caldecott (Illustration) and Newbery Medal. Australia's equivalent lies in the Children's Book Council of Australia Awards (Older Readers & Picture Book categories) and the Crichton Award for New Illustrators.

New Zealand/Aetearoa has the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, which has a Book of the Year plus a Picture Book category, and, more specifically, the Russell Clarke Award for the artist who has produced the most distinguished pictures or illustrations for a children's book with, or without, text. There are also the other New Zealand Librarian's LIANZA prizes (Russel C is one).

Canada has a plethora of gorgeous Children's Book Awards, but arguably the most comparable prize is the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon for Illustration. Tragic is not entirely sure what the lead Canadian equivalent of the Carnegie Medal is - perhaps the The Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature or the newish TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award? Will give that some thought before putting books forward.

All of the prizes mentioned choose quality books evidenced by the number that are still in print many years after initial publication. The winners of this years Carnegie and Greenaway Medals should prove no exception. The Carnegie winner, Bog Child , by the late Siobhan Dowd, will almost certainly become a classic. It was also the winner of Ireland's leading award the, CBI Bisto Award Leabhar-Ghradaim Book of the Year. Indeed, all of Siobhan's books are exemplary. Blessed we were by her presence.

Tragic thought it might be nice to put the winners of each of the prizes mentioned above side-by -side for comparison. Interestingly, few books seem to achieve 'classical' status, or even sell well, across all English speaking nation's often resonating in their country of origin only. Cultural relativity?

There are exceptions over the years, a few of which come to mind, no doubt there are others. The amazing Dr. Seuss books, celebrated by the annual Theodor Seuss Geisel Award; England's Roald Dahl, celebrated with new Roald Dahl Funny Prize; the evergreen Pipi Longstocking books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is the world's richest children's prize and was won a few years back by another writer who, whilst she has yet to crack America, is hugely popular in her home country of Australia and in Europe, Sonya Hartnett.

The links below will take you to award summary pages somewhere in Tragic' award winning book list realm, or to various retailers data-bases for more information. Historic winners lists can be found on various summary pages or go to Literary Awards Australia for the complete sheebang.

2009 Carnegie Medal Winner

Winner DOWD, SIOBHAN Bog Child
ISBN: 9781862305915 - Bog Child(Age range: 12+)

Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds something that makes his heart stop. Curled up deep in the bog is the body of the child. And it looks as if she’s been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the troubled world around him (it is 1980s Ireland), a little voice come to him in his dreams and the mystery of the bog child unfurls. More

Judges: This is a beautifully written and controlled novel, strong on dialogue but with some beautiful descriptive phrases as well. The dual narrative is deftly done and Dowd is very good on family relationships and the atmosphere of the times. The ending is satisfying, and the whole believable and unflinching

2009 Kate Greenaway Medal Winner

ISBN: 9781845065904 - Harris Finds His FeetRayner, Catherine Harris Finds His Feet
Publisher: Little Tiger Press ISBN: 9781845065898Little Tiger Press
(Age range: 3+)
ISBN: 9781845065898

Harris, a very small hare with very big feet goes out with his Grandad and finds out not only how to hop high into the sky, climb to the tops of the mountains and run very fast, but also about the importance of finding his own feet. More

Judges comments:Harris is a triumph from the way he moves and his expressions to his velvety fur and his hands and feet. His relationship with his Grandad is beautifully evoked as are the times of day and the textures of the exquisite landscapes around him. Shortlist

Recent winners Caldecott medal

2009

The House in the Night The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson and Beth Krommes

Review
"This picture book will make a strong impression on listeners making their first acquaintance with literature. It is a masterpiece that has all the hallmarks of a classic that will be loved for generations to come." School Library Journal (read more)

2008

The Invention of Hugo Cabret The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Review
"With characteristic intelligence, exquisite images, and a breathtaking design, Selznick shatters conventions related to the art of bookmaking....This is a masterful narrative that readers can literally manipulate." School Library Journal (Starred Review) (read more)

2007

Flotsam Flotsam by David Wiesner

Powells.com Staff Pick
A day at the beach like no other! A boy finds an old camera that has washed ashore and thus begins an incredible story-in-pictures. As beautiful and intriguing as any of his previous books, Flotsam is a Wiesner classic — a treat for kids and adults alike. (read more)

Recent Winners Newbery Medal

2009

The Graveyard Book The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Powells.com Staff Pick
Neil Gaiman has once again created a world filled with both dark humor and adventure. Nobody Owens, orphaned as an infant, is raised by the ghosts, ghouls, and werewolves of a graveyard. Exciting and oddly touching!
Recommended by Rachael, Powells.com (read more)

2008

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

Synopsis
Maidens, monks, and millers' sons — in these pages, readers will meet them all. There's Hugo, the lord's nephew, forced to prove his manhood by hunting a wild boar; sharp-tongued Nelly, who supports her family by selling live eels; and the peasant's daughter, Mogg, who gets a clever lesson in how to save a cow from a greedy landlord. (read more)

2007

The Higher Power of Lucky The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

Synopsis
Lucky, age ten, doesn't expect running away to be so complicated. A large cast of magnanimous surprises awaits her when she plans to hide from her guardian in the Mojave Desert. (read more)

Australia Children's Book Council Awards

CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers Readers

The Ghost's Child | Red Spikes | The Story of Tom Brennan

2008 Sonya Hartnett The Ghost's Child Viking Books
2007 Margo Lanagan Red Spikes Allen and Unwin
2006 J.C. Burke The Story of Tom Brennan Random House

Crichton Award for New Illustrators

When Elephants Lived in the Sea | The Mystery of the Eilean Mor | Two Summers |

2008 - Anna Walker Santa's Aussie Holiday

2007 - Vince Agostino When Elephants Lived in the Sea

2006 - Jeremy Geddes The Mystery of the Eilean Mor

Winners CBCA Picture Book of the Year

Requiem for a Beast | The Arrival | The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley |

2008 Matt Ottley Requiem for a Beast Lothian
2007 Shaun Tan The Arrival Lothian
2006 Colin Thompson The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley LothianAre We There Yet? | Cat and Fish
2005 Alison Lester Are We There Yet? A Journey Around Australia Viking Books
2004 Joan Grant, illus. Neil Curtis Cat and Fish Lothian

New Zealand Post

New Zealand Post Book of the Year Winner 2009

The 10PM Question

The 10PM Question

By Kate De Goldi

Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man, an apparently sensible, talented boy with a drumbeat of worrying questions steadily gaining volume in his head: Are the smoke alarm batteries flat? Does the cat, and therefore the rest of the family, have worms? Will bird flu strike and ruin life as we know it? Is the Kidney-shaped spot on his chest actually a galloping cancer? Only Ma takes seriously his catalogue of persistent queries. But it is Ma who is the cause of the most worrying question of all, the one that Frankie can never bring himself to ask. Then the new girl arrives at school and has questions of her own: relentless, unavoidable questions. So begins the unravelling of Frankie Parsons's carefully controlled world. More

Russell Clark Award Recent Winners

Rats! | The Three Fishing Brothers Gruff | Kiwi Moon

2008, Gavin Bishop, Rats
2007, Ben Galbraith, Three Fishing Brothers Gruff
2006, Gavin Bishop, Kiwi Moon

Mélanie Watt

Canada

20chester08 Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award Winner

Chester, written and illustrated by Mélanie Watt (RIGHT), published by Kids Can Press in 2007, is the winner. Mechanimals, written and illustrated by Chris Tougas (Orca Book Publishers) and My New Shirt, illustrated by Dušan Petričić and written by Cary Fagan (Tundra Books) are the honour books.

2008
Mélanie Watt Chester. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2007.
2007
Mélanie Watt Scaredy Squirrel. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2006.
2006
Leslie Elizabeth Watts The Baabaasheep Quartet. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2005.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

2009 Australian Book Industry Award Winners - ABIA The Night of Nights

No doubt dining on quince and swan, Australia's glitterati -litterarti gathered in Sydney to honour the best and brightest local authors, publishers, booksellers and distributors and and - well you get the picture. Put it this way, 18 categories were awarded in Australia's equivalent of The Galaxy British Book Awards. It must have been an epic event.

The Australian Publishers Association (APA) is the peak industry body for Australian book, journal and electronic publishers. Established in 1948, the association is an advocate for all Australian publishers: large or small; commercial or non-profit; academic or popular; locally or overseas owned. They coordinate the Australian Book Industry Awards (or ABIAs)

The shortlisted and winning entries comprising the 18 awards on offer are chosen by an academy of 150 booksellers and publishers who voted online in April/May 2009.

Given the kerfuffle with Book Price Wars in Australia, recession and the printed book as an endangered species, it was possibly an intense affair as rival booksellers chucked bits of garlic bread at each other and pouted strategically. Well, what else do you do on a Tuesday.

Tragic hopes that everyone took a moment off worrying to celebrate as some fabulous books, were recognised. At the end of the day we, the great unwashed and industry outsiders, are really interested in the books don't you know.

Book of the Year 2009

The Slap

Commonwealth Prize Winner, The Slap, by Chris Tsiolkas won Book of the Year - no doubt the ever-gracious Tim Winton doesn't mind sharing the largess around, after all Breath might have missed out here but has already won the Miles Franklin, Age Book of the Year, Australian Indies etc.

Shaun Tan and Melina Marchetta were both honoured; Tan for Tales from Suburbia (loved it) in Illustrated Book category and Marchetta in the Older Readers for Boston Horn Globe winner Finnikin of the Rock. (Shaun Tan won a Globe last year for the marvellous The Arrival).

Nam le will never have to practise law again. His multi-award winner, The Boat, won the Newcomer of the Year Award -strange as he seems to have been around for ages now. The book has previously won the NSW Premier's Book of the Year, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the USA's Ainsfield-Wolf - and probably a few Tragic has forgotten.

Strangely enough, despite having five of the six nominations in the Chain Bookseller of the Year Award, Dymocks franchisees, who are leading the charge to deregulate the Australian industry, lost out to Melbourne's Hill of Content. Book Politics Down-Under? Nah..... Such things aside, if ever you are in Melbourne, check-out Hill of Content, it is a truly delicious bookshop -over 80 years old, which, by Aussie standards is quality vintage.

One of the things that Tragic likes about the awards is that beleaguered small publishers and book shops are recognised. One of his favourite champions, Black Books Inc, won Small Publisher of the Year 2009, (sponsored by Midland Typesetters- good on ya).

Aussie legend, Mem Fox, was in the winners circle with her charming book, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, winning the Younger Children's category. Tragic's children have always adored her books.

Other winners as detailed below. Book links to Fishpond books in Australia for more information. Tragic maintains a summary page at Literary Awards Australia - grab a coffee and a bagel, it could take a while to get through.

2009 Australian Book Industry Award Winners

Pixie O' Harris Award for distinguished service to Australian Children's Books - Helen Chamberlin

Lloyd O' Neil Award for outstanding service to the book industry - David Gaunt

The SlapBook of the Year 2009 and Literary Fiction Winner

Winner: The Slap, written by Christos Tsiolkas, published by Allen & Unwin

Also Winner: Commonwealth Writers' Award Book of the Year

At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of buy_from_fishpondpeople, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event. In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye on to that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires. What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse.

A Beautiful Place to Die | The Boat| Tales from Outer Suburbia|

General Fiction Book of the Year 200

Winner

A Beautiful Place to Die, written by Malla Nunn, published by Macmillan Publishers Australia

When an Afrikaans police captain is murdered in a small South African country town, Detective Emmanuel Cooper must navigate his way through the labyrinthine racial and social divisions that split the community. And as the National Party introduces the laws to support the system of apartheid, Emmanuel struggles - much like Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko - to remain a good man in the face of astonishing pbuy_from_fishpondower. In a considered but very commercial novel, Malla Nunn combines a compelling plot with a thoughtful and complex portrayal of a fascinating period of history, illustrating the human desires that drive us all, regardless of race, colour or creed. "A Beautiful Place To Die" is the first of a planned series of novels featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper. More

Winner Newcomer of the Year (debut writer)

Also won: Dylan Thomas Prize - Ainsfield Wolf Book Award (USA) -NSW Premier's Book of the Year

The Boat, written by Nam Le, published by Penguin Australia - buy_from_fishpond

The Boat is a stunningly inventive, deeply moving fiction debut: stories that take the readers from the slums of Colombia tothe streets of Tehran; from New York City to Iowa City; from a tiny fishing village in Australia to a foundering vessel in the South China Sea, in a masterful display of literary virtuosity and feeling. In the opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam — and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. More

Winner Illustrated Book of the Year 2009

Tales From Outer Suburbia, written by Shaun Tan, published by Allen & Unwin buy_from_fishpond

Do you remember the water buffalo at the end of our street? Or the deep-sea diver we found near the underpass? Do you know why dogs bark in the middle of the night? Shaun Tan, creator of The Arrival, The Lost Thing and The Red Tree, reveals the quiet mysteries of everyday life: homemade pets, dangerous weddings, stranded sea mammals, tiny exchange students and secret rooms filled with darkness and delight. Fifteen intriguing illustrated stories about the mysteries that lurk below the surface of suburban life. More

The Lucy Family Alphabet| The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island| Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes

Winner Biography of the Year 2009

The Lucy Family Alphabet, written by Judith Lucy, published by Penguin Australiabuy_from_fishpond

Judith Lucy has been cracking jokes about her parents for years. But when a birth relative's casual comment implied that she despised them, Judith was shocked. Sure, she had been talking about Ann and Tony Lucy like they were one-dimensional Irish nutbags who'd ruined her life for years, but there was always more to them and her own feelings than that. So Judith decided it was time to write the full story of her parents and her childhood. And here it is, a reference book on all things Lucy from: A is for Adoption (she is) to C is for Cleaning (they didn't) and for Counselling (you'll find out why she had a lot of it) to D is for Diets (she was put on one at eight) .. More

Winner General Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2009

The Tall Man, written by Chloe Hooper, published by Penguin Australiabuy_from_fishpond

In 2004 Cameron Doomadgee, a 36-year-old resident of Palm Island, was arrested for swearing at a white police officer. Within 45 minutes he was dead. The main suspect was well respected Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley. This is the story of what happened, the trial, and the Aboriginal myths around the case. More

Book of the Year for Younger Children (age range 0 to 8 years) 2009

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, written by Mem Fox, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, published by Penguin buy_from_fishpond

As everyone knows, nothing is sweeter than tiny baby fingers and chubby baby toes ...From two of the most gifted picture book creators of our time, here is a celebration of babies and the joy they bring to everyone, everywhere, all over the world! 'This is a perfect read-aloud picture book ...full of warmth and appeal. It was a joy to read and a pleasure to hold.' Margaret Hamilton, Bookseller and Publisher More

Winner Book of the Year for Older Children (age range 8 to14 years) 2009

Finnikin of the Rock, written by Melina Marchetta, published by Penguin Australiabuy_from_fishpond

At the age of nine, Finnikin is warned by the gods that he must sacrifice a pound of flesh in order to save the royal house of his homeland, Lumatere. He stands on the rock of three wonders with his friend Prince Balthazar and the prince's cousin, Lucian, and together they mix their blood. And Lumatere is safe: but then the unspeakable! More

Publisher Categories in Full- Goodness knows they keep the whole show on the road- bless em'

Small Publisher of the Year 2009, sponsored by Midland Typesetters

  • Black Dog Books Black Inc - Winner
  • Giramondo Publishing Company
  • University of Queensland Press
  • Wakefield Press

Publisher of the Year 2009

Penguin Australia - Winner

Others: Allen & Unwin Hachette Australia Random House Australia The Text Publishing Company

Distributor of the Year 2009, sponsored by VISTA Computer Systems

Winner: United Book Distributors

Other finalists

Alliance Distribution Services Harper Entertainment Distribution Services Hinkler Books Random House Australia

Marketing Campaign of the Year 2009, in memory of John Cody, sponsored by Random House Australia

Winner: Penguin Australia, for Popular Penguins, written by various authors

Allen & Unwin, for Change of Heart, written by Jodi Picoult Allen & Unwin, for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, written by Mary Ann Shaffer Penguin Australia, for Breath, written by Tim Winton Random House Australia, for Occy, written by Mark Occhilupo & Tim Baker

International Success of the Year 2009, sponsored by Activair

  • Penguin Australia, for various Sonya Hartnett titles -Winner
  • Other finalists
  • HarperCollins Publishers, for Hammer of God, written by Karen Miller
  • Random House Australia, for The Floods, by Colin Thompson

Chain Bookseller of the Year 2009, sponsored by PacStream (Thorpe-Bowker & ECN Group)

Vic Hill of Content- Winner

Others: NSW/ACT Dymocks Sydney Qld Dymocks Indooroopilly SA/NT Dymocks Adelaide Tas Dymocks Hobart WA Dymocks Garden City (Booragoon)

Independent Bookseller of the Year 2009 *, sponsored by Thorpe-Bowker

  • Vic Readings Books Music Film Carlton - Winner
  • NSW/ACT Gleebooks
  • Qld Riverbend Books & Teahouse SA/NT
  • Imprints Booksellers Tas
  • Fullers Bookshop Hobart
  • WA Bookcaffe

Wales and Scottish Books of the Year. Orwell Prize Winners

Whoops. Tragic has been a bit off his blogging game the last week or two and a few book awards have slipped through to the keeper ( a cricketing term for those unfamiliar). He has been kept busy updating Literary Festivals UK. Those tricky festivals come, they go and some vanish like Brigadoon. A song coming on.......

Scottish and Welsh awards are in focus. Love the diversity. Is there a distinct Scottish or Welsh voice in literature? Tragic is woefully ignorant of the Welsh genre, but James Kelman, who is getting to be a blog regular, certainly gives voice to an authentic Scottish experience judging by peer response. Is there a Cornish or Isle Of Man Book Award or others for those regions who would like more autonomy? How necessary is it to have distinct regional narrative in literature to keep a culture alive?

Links below to Blackwell Books. Full details of 70 other English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh awards at at Literary Awards UK.

£10,000 Prize Wales Book of the Year

Deborah Kay Davies has won the Wales Book of the Year 2009 for her debut collection of short stories Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful published by Parthian.

The announcement was made on Monday 15 June, at an award ceremony at The St David’s Hotel and Spa, introduced by BBC Political Editor, Betsan Powys and poet Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Deborah Kay Davies received the £10,000 prize from judge Mike Parker (no relation as far as we know to the Award Tragic alter ego, Kevin Parker)

Set in the eastern valleys of South Wales from 1970 to the present, Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful tells the story of two sisters, Grace and Tamar, their volatile childhood, disruptive coming of age and dubious maturity. By turns moving, hilarious and terrifying and often all three at once, it is an unusual collection in that each story is complete in its own right, but also forms part of a continuous and powerful sequence. Part fantasy, part social history, these are dark, universal tales about how utterly strange it is to learn to be human.

The two runners-up were each awarded £1,000: Gee Williams for Blood etc. (Parthian) and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch for Not in these Shoes (Picador).

The winner of the Welsh-language award, who also received a £10,000 prize, was William Owen Roberts for his book Petrograd (Cyhoeddiadau Bardda)

£25,000 Scottish Book of the Year -

Kieron Smith, Boy , by James Kelman has won. Was it the only book of worth with a Scottish pedigree in the last year? It has won Scottish Grand Slam of Book Awards as it can now add the Scottish Arts Council Prize to the cabinet with the The Aye Write Scottish Fiction and the Saltire Scottish.

Despite being a formidable writer and highly praised, Mr. Kelman has done it tough over the years as making a dollar from the quill, especially for quality prose, is ever-more challenging. Tragic has been a Kelman reader for years, and, whilst not particularly comfortable reads, Mr. K books always captivate and lead to the need for a comforting malt.

In his gracious acceptance of the Scottish Arts Book of the Year , Mr Kelman said, in as many words, that the value of literary prizes, both for prestige and the $$$'s attached, should not be underestimated to enable authors to pursue their craft. A bunch of Daffodils therefore to Scottish Mortgage for taking up the sponsorship of this important award. Tragic does feel that the title, as he has seen it reported, The Scottish Arts Council Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards, does need a little work though!

Orwell Prize for Political Writing Winner-

The Orwell Prize is the pre-eminent British prize for political writing. There are three annual awards: a Book Prize and a Journalism Prize and a Political Blog Prize. They are awarded to the book, and for the journalism, which is judged to have best achieved George Orwell’s aim to ‘make political writing into an art’. Homage to Catalonia, Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm and Orwell’s incomparable essays still resonate around the world as peerless examples of courageous independence of mind, steely analysis and beautiful writing..

Winner: , Andrew Brown for Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the Future That Disappeared. Patrick Cockburn – was awarded the Journalism Prize for articles from the London Review of Books and the London Independent.

Description: From the 1960s to the 1980s, Sweden was an affluent, egalitarian country envied around the world. Refugees were welcomed, even misfit young Englishmen could find a place there. Andrew Brown spent part of his childhood in Sweden during the 1960s. In the 1970s he married a Swedish woman and worked in a timber mill raising their small son. Fishing became his passion and his escape. In the mid-1980s his marriage and the country fell apart. The Prime Minister was assassinated. The welfare system crumbled along with the industries that had supported it. Twenty years later Andrew Brown travelled the length of Sweden in search of the country he had loved, and then hated, and now found he loved again.

2009 Orwell Journalism & Blog Prizes

Patrick Cockburn – awarded the Journalism Prize for articles from the London Review of Books and the London Independent.

Jack Night – awarded the Special Prize for Blogs for his blog, NightJack – An English Detective. (Jack Night, a pseudonym, is a serving police officer)

Journalism Prize
Bennett, Catherine: The Observer
Cockburn, Patrick: The Independent, London Review of Books- Winner
Hitchens, Peter: The Mail on Sunday
Macintyre, Donald: The Independent
Oborne, Peter: Daily Mail, Channel 4 Dispatches, Prospect
Porter, Henry: The Observer

Blog Prize
Alix Mortimer: The People's Republic of Mortimer -
Andrew Sparrow: Guardian Politics Blog
Chekov: Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness
Iain Dale: Iain Dale's Diary
Jack Night: Night Jack - Winner
Paul Mason: BBC Newsnight - Idle Scrawl

Oh Canada! My Heart is Breaking!

To those lovely Canadian folk who have emailed me regarding the lack of updates. Sorry Canada - your lands and plethora of awards are just too wide and mighty to keep-up with. Tragic fears that he might have to caste you adrift (temporarily he hopes) outside of your majors. Canlit Awards, Tragic's Canadian book list site, has sunk into cyber-quicksands of disrepair - even missed the Trilliums. Ouch.



Thursday, June 18, 2009

Winton Wins Miles Franklin

Tim Winton has won Australia's leading book award, the Miles FranklinBreath Literary Prize, for Breath. Mr. W. wasn't at the gala presentation as he doesn't do ceremonies. The cheque for AU$42,000 is in the mail. Should keep him in surfboard wax for a while.

Congrats' to Mr. Winton for whom Tragic has a soft spot given the authors' wonderful contribution to preserving Western Australia's marine environment.
buy_from_fishpond
Tragic is so chuffed that he is going to borrow a surf board and go catch a wave. 50 years old is exactly the right time to take-up grommit status.

Breath is narrated from middle age by Bruce "Pikelet" Pike looking back on his adolescence. It's about the risks the young take, the struggle not to be ordinary and how they deal with forces and emotions they can't always identify or understand. Winton propels his characters from river to ocean, from basic surfing to the biggest challenges the sea can offer, and from teen romance to the most confronting sexual experiences.

Other shortlisted

Other Shortlisted

The Slap

The Slap

By Christos Tsiolkas

buy_from_fishpondAt a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event. In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye on to that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires. What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that family can arouse.

Ice , Louis Nowra (Allen & Unwin)

IceIce is a story within a story, set in two time frames: the nineteenth century and the twenty-first century. It explores the link between obsessive love and irreconcilable loss. The wider canvas is a vision of Australia in the late nineteenth century as a melting pot of people and ideas.

buy_from_fishpondThe main story begins in the late 1880’s with one of Nowra’s great descriptive scenes – a battered ship sails into Sydney Harbour towing an iceberg from Antarctica. The shores teem with people who have come to gaze on the dazzling spectacle and the quays are crowded with traders with their horses and carts ready to buy the precious frozen water. One of the leaders of this extraordinary expedition is Malcolm McEacharn, a Scotsman, and it his story that is the core of this engrossing novel. As a young man he was rescued from a bleak and lonely existence by marrying the beautiful Ann. Working for her father in Yorkshire, he learnt about engineering and scientific theories; his fulfillment is complete but short lived – his wife’s sudden death plunges him into inconsolable grief

The Pages by Murray Bail (Text publishing Australia)

The Pages

Two Sydney women, friends, but oddly matched, set out on an adventure. Erica, who is self contained, academic and undemonstrative, has been commissioned to appraise the philosophical leavings of an Australian autodidact and thinker, Wesley Antill, whose papers are preserved in the woolshed of the buy_from_fishpondfamily sheep station in western New South Wales. Sophie is opulent, compulsively verbal (a psychologist) and recovering from an affair that didn’t go her way. Both women are of an age to be examining their lives.

Detached from their urban routines, the two women find their diffident but obliging hosts, sister and brother, Lindsey and Roger Antill, disconcerting, and rural life, with its integrity, ritual hospitality and latent threat, unsettling. New alliances form, different affinities develop. The friendship frays

Wanting, Richard Flanagan (Knopf, Random House Australia)

WantingFor Richard Flanagan the past is full-bodied, pulsing with irreconcilable facts, desires and intentions – banal, malign, meretricious, occasionally good. Flanagan paves his novel with them. Wanting is not a history. Rather it is, as its writer claims, a meditation on the consequences of human beings’ buy_from_fishpondrepressing, denying, failing to understand or subverting the impulses of their hearts.

In Van Dieman’s Land, the protector of Aborigines, Charles Augustus Robinson is cleft by contrary instincts. He loves the people he is charged with protecting, with ‘bringing in’, yet they are dying around him, victims of contact with the colonising society that is supposed to elevate them. When he dances naked with ‘his’ people, he is prey to passions he does not understand and exhilarated in ways that both pleasure and alarm him.

The governor of Van Dieman’s Land and his ambitious wife turn the colony into a scientific experiment. Sir John and Lady Franklin hold improving soirees, institute lectures, and displease their staff and colonial society by not licensing a benign decadence as compensation for dutiful exile at the other end of the earth. The childless Lady Jane adopts a beautiful native child, Mathinna, ostensibly to educate her in white ways. But black ways prove intractable, and the child grows into a fascinating, tragic hybrid, at once a reproach and a temptation. More

Judges Formal Comments and Shortlisted Book Descriptions

Judges for this year’s Award are Professor Robert Dixon, Professor Morag Fraser AM, Lesley McKay, Regina Sutton and Murray Waldren.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

UK Crime Writers Association Daggers Shortlists

The UK Crime Writers Association recently listed their 2009 shortlists - affectionately known as 'The Daggers'. Tragic always makes a point of reading the winner of International Dagger and is half-hoping that the shortlisted Stieg Larsson's, The Girl who played with Fire, translated by Reg Keeland (MacLehose Quercus), wins as he has already read it! Very gripping it was too.

Tragic has the Daggers to thank for introducing him the to super French writer Fred Vargas, who has the The Chalk Circle Man, translated by Siân Reynolds, on the shortlist. Ms. Vargas is almost a permanent fixture on the list each year winning in 2007 with Fred Vargas, Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand, translated by Sîan Reynolds and in 2006 with , The Three Evangelists, translated once again by Sîan Reynolds.

This year also sees the introduction of The Debut Dagger for aspiring crime book authors. Lovely to see such a leading award bringing on the next generation.

Tragic maintains a Dagger's summary page at Literary Awards UK. Links to the official site, which is very fine, can be found with the award description at the bottom of the page. Book links to Blackwell.

[Next book in Tragic's crime genre pile is Ian Rankin's The Naming of the Dead]

The CWA International Dagger 2009 Shortlist

For crime, thriller, suspense or spy fiction novels which have been translated into English from their original language, for UK publication. £1000 prize money for the author and £500 for the translator:

ISBN: 9781846550652 - Arctic Chill | ISBN: 9781847245564 - The Girl Who Played with Fire | ISBN: 9781846550409 - The Redeemer | ISBN: 9780385613620 - Echoes from the Dead | ISBN: 9781843432722 - The Chalk Circle Man

Arnaldur Indridason, The Arctic Chill, translated by Bernard Scudder and Victoria Cribb (Harvill Secker)buy_from_blackwell

On an icy January day the Reykjavik police are called to a block of flats where a body has been found in the garden: a young, dark-skinned boy, frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The discovery of a stab wound in his stomach... More

Stieg Larsson, The Girl who played with Fire, translated by Reg Keeland (MacLehose Quercus)buy_from_blackwell

Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists about to expose the truth about the sex trade inSweden are brutally murdered, and Salander's prints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her anywhere. More

Jo Nesbo, The Redeemer, translated by Don Bartlett (Harvill Secker)buy_from_blackwell

One night in Oslo, Christmas shoppers gather to listen to a Salvation Army street concert. An explosion cuts through the music, and a man in uniform falls to the ground. Harry Hole and his team have little to work with: no suspect and no motive. More

Johan Theorin, Echoes from the Dead, translated by Marlaine Delargy (Doubleday)buy_from_blackwell

Can you ever come to terms with a missing child? Julia Davidsson has not. Her five-year-old son disappeared twenty years previously on the Swedish island of Oland. No trace of him has ever been found. Until his shoe arrives in the post. More

Fred Vargas, The Chalk Circle Man, translated by Siân Reynolds (Harvill Secker)buy_from_blackwell

When strange blue chalk circles start appearing overnight on the pavements of Paris, the press take up the story with amusement and psychiatrists trot out their theories. Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, a policeman is alone in thinking that this is not a... More

Karin Alvtegen, Shadow, translated by McKinley Burnett, (Canongate)buy_from_blackwell

In a nondescript apartment block in Stockholm, most of the residents are elderly. Usually a death is a sad but straightforward event. But sometimes a resident will die and there are no friends or family to contact. This is when Marianne Folkesson... More

The CWA Short Story Dagger 2009 Shortlist

Any crime short story first published in the UK in English in return for payment. Prize money £1500:

Lawrence Block: Speaking of Lust from Crime Express series (Five Leaves Publications)
Sean Chercover: One Serving of Bad Luck from Killer Year (Mira)
Laura Lippman: Cougar from Two of the Deadliest (Hodder & Stoughton)
Peter Robinson: The Price of Love from The Blue Religion (Quercus)
Zoë Sharp: Served Cold from The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime (Constable & Robinson)
Chris Simms: Mother’s Milk from The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime (Constable & Robinson)

The CWA Dagger in the Library 2009 Shortlist

Unlike most other literary prizes, the Dagger in the Library is awarded not for an individual book but for the author’s body of work. Authors are nominated by UK libraries and Readers’ Groups and judged by a panel of librarians. Previous winners have included Stuart McBride, Craig Russell and Alexander McCall Smith. The £1500 prize is sponsored by the publishers Random House. In addition, the participating libraries’ readers groups that nominated the winning author will be entered into a draw for £300 to be spent on books for their group.

The 2009 shortlist is:

Simon Beckett
Colin Cotterill
R J Ellory

Ariana Franklin
Peter James
Michael Robotham

The CWA Debut Dagger 2009 Shortlist

The Debut Dagger is open to anyone who has not yet had a novel published commercially. The first prize, sponsored by Orion, is £500 plus two free tickets to the prestigious CWA Dagger Awards and night’s stay for two in a top London hotel. The shortlist is:

Frank Burkett: A View from the Clock Tower (Australia)
Aoife Clifford: My First Big Book of Murder (Australia)
CJ Harper: Backdrop (USA)
Madeleine Harris-Callway: The Land of Sun and Fun (Canada)
Renata Hill: Sex, Death and Chocolate (Canada)
Mick Laing: The Sirius Patrol (UK)
Susan Lindgren: Forgotten Treasures (USA)
Catherine O’Keefe: The Pathologist (Canada)
Danielle Ramsay: Paterfamilias (UK)
Germaine Stafford: A Vine Time for Trouble (Italy)
Martin Ungless: Idiot Wind (UK)
Alan Wright: Murder at the Séance (UK)

About the Award

The Crime Writers Association is responsible for administering Britain's leading crime fiction awards, 'The Daggers'. Membership is open to any author who has had one crime novel produced by a bona fide publisher. It is this collective body, consisting of over 450 members,that decides upon the awards. There are seven Dagger Book Awards including the :Duncan Lawrie Dagger. The Duncan Lawrie International Dagger; CWA Ian Flemming Steel Dagger; CWA New Blood Dagger; CWA Dagger in the Library; the Debut Dagger and Cartier Diamond Dagger. The Ellis Peter Historical Award is also given.

Starting in 1955 major award was originally known as the Crossed Red Herring Award, then the Gold Dagger and is now the Duncan Lawrie Dagger. It carries a prize of £20,000, the largest award for crime fiction in the world for the best crime novel of the year.

2009 Orange Prize for Fiction and New Writers Winners and shortlists

As promised, details of the UK's Orange Prize and shortlisted books. Tragic notices that the term Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction got quietly dropped-off along the way. Also included the Orange New Writer's results.

Not surprisingly, the Orange is one of the most visited award pages at Literary Awards UK this month. What is interesting though is that the Man Booker prize has dropped out of the top ten for the first time ever.... Are we all Bookered Out? Most popular by the way is the Costa followed by the Orange and the Children's Illustrators award, the Kate Greenaway Medal.

A number of Tragic's legions of followers have asked for the cartoon mash-up at the bottom to be posted again. Flattering. What are you up to? Book links to Blackwell Books

2009 Orange Prize Winner

ISBN: 9781844085507 - Home4th June, 2009- The 2009 Orange Prize, has been won by American Marilynne Robinson for her novel :buy_from_blackwell HomeMarilynne Robinson: Home (Virago), American, 3rd Novel (Virago), Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for her novel Gilead, revisits the setting and some of the characters from her previous work, creating in Home, described by the judges, as “a kind, wise, enriching novel, exquisitely crafted.”

Hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled and delighted by the luminous, tender voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Now comes HOME, a deeply affecting novel that takes place in the same period and same Iowa town of Gilead. This is Jack's story. Jack - prodigal son of the Boughton family, godson and namesake of John Ames, gone twenty years - has come home looking for refuge and to try to make peace with a past littered with trouble and pain. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold down a job, Jack is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton's most beloved child. His sister Glory has also returned to Gilead, fleeing her own mistakes, to care for their dying father. Brilliant, loveable, wayward, Jack forges an intense new bond with Glory and engages painfully with his father and his father's old friend John Ames. More

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2009 Orange Prize Other Shortlisted

ISBN: 9780330456142 - Scottsboro | ISBN: 9780099524007 - The Invention of Everything Else | ISBN: 9780571239665 - Molly Fox's Birthday | ISBN: 9781408804278 - Burnt Shadows

Ellen Feldman: Scottsboro: A Novel (Picador), American, 3rd Novelbuy_from_blackwell

In Alabama, 1931, a posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths. Their crime: fighting withwhite boys. Then two white girls emerge from another freight car, and the cry of rape goes up. A young journalist fights to save the nine... More

Samantha Harvey: The Wilderness (Jonathan Cape), British, 1st Novelbuy_from_blackwell

Samantha Hunt: The Invention of Everything Else (HarvillSecker), American, 2nd Novel

Louisa is an imaginative and curious chambermaid who, while cleaning rooms at the New Yorker Hotel,stumbles across a man living permanently in room 3327, which he has transformed into a scientific laboratory. Louisa discovers that the mysterious... Morebuy_from_blackwell

Deirdre Madden: Molly Fox's Birthday (Faber and Faber), Irish, 7th Novel

Dublin. Midsummer. While absent in New York, the celebrated actor Molly Fox has loaned her house to a playwright friend, who is struggling to write a new work. Over the course of this, the longest day of the year, the playwright reflects upon her... More

Kamila Shamsie: Burnt Shadows (Bloomsbury), Pakistani/British, 5th Novelbuy_from_blackwell

In a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling, naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to GuantanamoBay. How did it come to this? he wonders August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the... More

ISBN: 9780753825655 - An Equal Stillness2009 New Orange Broadband New Writers Award Winner & Shortlist

Winner: Francesca Kay for An Equal Stillness , Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Jennet Mallow is born in Yorkshire in the 1920s but her interest in art and creativity buy_from_blackwellalienates her from her family, her father who is a priest, her conventional sister and her emotionally stunted mother. Jennet moves to London in search of a more exciting life and finds it in her new environment and in the handsome and enigmatic figure of the painter David Heaton. When Jennet falls pregnant, her parents more or less force the two to marry. In the post-war austerity of the 1940s, the young couple struggles to make ends meet and Jennet finds that her home life is gradually eroding everything she has fought to achieve. Aware that David is becoming increasingly reliant on drink and tired of the dank and drab bed-sit in which they live, Jennet suggests they move to Spain. There, the bright blue skies, warm air and sunlit beaches give the couple and their children a new lease of life. Jennet begins to paint again and an agent takes an interest in her work. But as Jennet's own career begins to take off, her relationship with David sours and the two enter a destructive spiral with tragic consequences.

ISBN: 9781844085446 - Miles from Nowhere | ISBN: 9780330458559 - The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

Other Shortlisted

Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun, Viragobuy_from_blackwell

A brutally honest, linguistically inventive and profoundly moving novel that will inspire a generation of readers Joon is a young Korean immigrant living in the Bronx of the 1980s. Her parents have crumbled under the weight of her father's... More

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber, Macmillan New Writingbuy_from_blackwell

It is 1917 in the South Dakota Badlands, and summer has been hard. Fourteen years have passed since Rachel andIsaac DuPree left Chicago to stake a claim in this unforgiving land. Isaac, a former Buffalo Soldier, is proud: black families are rare... More


Muslim Writers' Award and Orange Award Winners

Whoops! Missed the results of the fairly newish UK based Muslim Writers Award and failed to blog (the verb to blog: I blog, you blog etc) the Orange. Fancy. Apologies to my fellow Book Award Tragics. Tragic can only plead a delightful, but unusual large share of caring for his many young Angel Children as Mrs. T. pursues her profession. Ah the glamour of a Renaissance Man's Life.................. Great chance to catch-up on some of the fantastic books the children are getting through for a MS Readathon they are involved in though.

Anyhow, Kamila Shamsie's (left) , Burnt Shadows has won the 2009 UK's Muslim Writers' Award Fiction prize and Shelina Zahra Janmohamed's , Love in a Headscarf: Muslim woman seeks the One, the Non-fiction category.

Burnt Shadows is highly recommended and the high standard bodes well for the prize. Tragic was sad that it didn't win the recently announced Orange Prize for which it was shortlisted as he thoroughly enjoyed the read. Mind you, many appear to find the Orange winner, US author Marilynne Robinson's Home , very engaging . It was described by the judges, as “a kind, wise, enriching novel, exquisitely crafted.” Maybe so, but Tragic found it's precursor, the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead, hard going - a little like wading up a treacle creek. As Home revisits the setting and some of the characters from her previous work, he is not rushing out to buy it just yet.

Tragic has had an uneasy relationship with Orange Prize Winners in general in recent years and has to go back to the 2002 winner Ann Patchett's Bel Canto for his last truly satisfying read (maybe 2006 winner Zadie Smith's - On Beauty if in the right mood).

At least with Home winning this year, the judges have some International pedigree 'back-up' as the book was previously shortlisted for the USA heavyweight prizes, the National Book Critics Circle and the US National. Some of the other winners in recent years would certainly have struggled in such company.

Winning and shortlisted book details for the Muslim Writers below. Links to Blackwell's (UK & USA) data-base. Tragic maintains a brief summary page for The Muslim Writers' Award at Literary Awards UK as he does for the Orange for those who would like to have a 'squizz' at the shortlisted book details. Will post the Orange winner and shortlist book details in a separate post as all a bit unwieldy.

Ciao for now.

Current reads: Permaculture : A Designers Manual, Bill Mollinson.
The Complete Stories, David Malouf . Stanley: the Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal and The Body Artist by Don DeLillo

Muslim Writers awards

The annual Muslim Writers Awards recognises the breadth and quality of literary talent within the UK’s Muslim community.

There are categories for Fiction, nonfiction, Journalism, Unpublished Poetry, Unpublished Novels, Unpublished Short Stories, Unpublished – Children’s stories and Under-16s Categories. The latter includes a poetry and short story category and is broken down by age categories; 8-10, 11-13 and 14-16. Further details are at the awards website.

2009 Winners and Shortlists

ISBN: 9781408804278 - Burnt Shadows | ISBN: 9780141035642 - The Road from Damascus | ISBN: 9780747597131 - In Other Rooms, Other Wonders |

Fiction

Winner: Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows, Bloomsbury buy_from_blackwell

In a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling, naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to Guantanamo Bay. How did it come to this? he wonders August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. Wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, she is twenty-one, in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it explodes with the sound of fire and the horror of realisation. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost. In search of new beginnings, she travels to Delhi two years later. There she walks into the lives of Konrad's half-sister, Elizabeth, her husband James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu.. Morebuy_from_blackwell

Robin Yassin-kassab, The Road from Damascus , Hamish Hamilton - It is summer 2001 and Sami Traifi is struggling. His wife Muntaha has just announced that she is taking up the hijab. Furious with Muntaha, he finds himself embarking on a spontaneous quest for meaning and fulfillment, but all too soon his search... Morebuy_from_blackwell

Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders , Bloomsbury -A powerful collection of linked stories about the entwined lives of masters and servants set in Pakistan The linked stories in In Other Rooms, Other Wonders illuminate a place and a people as they describe the overlapping worlds of an extended... Morebuy_from_blackwell

ISBN: 9780553818765 - In Arabian Nights | ISBN: 9780349121376 - The Marriage Bureau for Rich People

Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights , Bantam - Collects traditional stories of Morocco that are recounted by an eccentric cast of characters: from master masons who work only at night to Sufi wise men who write for soap operas and Tuareg guides addicted to reality TV. Shortly after the 2005... Morebuy_from_blackwell

Farahad Zama, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People , Abacus - Charming and funny yet acutely observed, this is what Jane Austen might write if she set a story in a contemporary Indian marriage bureau. What does somebody with a wealth of common sense do if retirement palls? Why, open a marriage bureau... More

Judges: Miranda Mckearney, Qaisra Shahraz and Zarah Hussain

Non-Fiction

ISBN: 9781845134280 - Love in a Headscarf | buy_from_blackwellISBN: 9780955235924 - In the Land of the Ayatollahs Tupac Shakur is King | ISBN: 9781844671694 - My Grandmother |

Winner: Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, Love in a Headscarf: Muslim woman seeks the One , Aurum Press -

Shelina is keeping a very surprising secret under her headscarf - she wants to fall in love.

Torn between the Buxom Aunties, romantic comedies and mosque Imams, she decides to follow the arranged-marriage route to finding Mr Right, Muslim-style. Shelina's journey begins as a search for the One, but along the way she also discovers her faith and herself.

A memoir with a hilarious twist from one of Britain's leading female Muslim writers, Love in a Headscarf is an entertaining, fresh and unmissable insight into what it means to be a young British Muslim woman Mbuy_from_blackwellore

Shahzad Aziz, In the Land of the Ayatollahs Tupac Shakur Is King: Reflections from Iran and the Arab World Amal Press- Using the cities and culture of the Middle East as a backdrop, this study explores issues within the Arab world and in its relations with the West. Serious debate is interspersed with witty travel dialogue to discuss many issues facing the Eastern... Mbuy_from_blackwellore

Fethiye Cetin, My Grandmother: A Memoir , Verso- When Fethiye Cetin was growing up in the small Turkish town of Maden, she knew her grandmother as a happy and universally respected Muslim housewife. It would be decades before her grandmother told her the truth: that she was by birth a Christian... Morebuy_from_blackwell

ISBN: 9781844082704 - The Making of Mr Hai's Daughter | ISBN: 9780745632896 - Multiculturalism

Yasmin Hai, The Making of Mr Hai's Daughter: Becoming British The Making of Mr Hai’s Daughter: Becoming British, Virago - With the humour and passion of Hanif Kureishi and Meera Syal - an amazing story about identity and roots and a daughter's understanding of her father Mr Hai arrived in London in 1964. But, while becoming British via a passport had been... More

buy_from_blackwell Tariq Modood, Multiculturalism (Themes for the 21st Century Series) , Polity Press- KEN LANGDON has worked for many major computer companies world-wide, including Hewlett Packard and DEC, and is presently the non-executive chairman for SofTools, a supplier of electronic Integrated Support Systems, and Glenhurst Ltd... More

Judges: Dr Claire Chambers, Dr Tahir Abbas, Hannah Westland and Dele Fatunla

U.S. Author Michael Thomas Wins International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Well, the Judges redeemed themselves. Thank Goodness. Tragic was desperately disappointed with this years shortlist but the wise ones have come good and picked the best of the bunch. That was close. Nearly had to demote the Dublin from it's Number One Position in The Tragic Literary Award World Rankings. There are definitely some challengers in the wings though.....

Congratulations to U.S. author Michael Thomas who has won the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his debut novel, collecting 100,000 euros ($150,000USD) in what is billed as the world’s richest prize for a single work of fiction. Should keep Mr. Thomas in quills for a while anyhow.

Thomas was honoured at a reception at Dublin’s Mansion House for Man Gone Down, about a once-promising Harvard student who is now broke and trying to raise money to keep his family together.

Sounds a bit too close to the bone for Tragic's liking. Off to busk the afternoon cinema queue...

Link below to Blackwell Books (UK & USA). Tragic maintains a summary page on the Delicious Dublin at Literary Awards UK.

Man Gone Down by Micheal Thomas (American) Grove / Atlantic

This book is an extraordinary debut that tackles race, wealth and family head on as a young black man finds the American Dream dissolving around him. On the eve of this thirty-fifth birthday, the unnamed black narrator of "Man Gone Down" finds himself broke, estranged from his white wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a friend's six-year-old child. He has four days to come up with the money to keep his kids in school and make a down payment on an apartment for them to live in. As we slip between his childhood in inner city Boston and present-day New York City, we discover a life marked by abuse, abandonment, raging alcoholism, and the best and worst intentions of a supposedly integrated America. This is a story of the American Dream gone awry, about what it's like to feel preprogrammed to fail in life and the urge to escape that sentence. More

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (official site) is the largest and most international prize of its kind. It involves libraries from all corners of the globe, and is open to books written in any language. The Book Award, an initiative of Dublin City Council, is a partnership between Dublin City Council, the Municipal Government of Dublin City, and IMPAC, a productivity improvement company which operates in over 50 countries. The Award is administered by Dublin City Public Libraries

The prize is €100,000 which is awarded to the author if the book is written in English. If the winning book is in English translation, the author receives €75,000 and the translator, €25,000. The winner also receives a trophy which is sponsored by Waterford Crystal. The 2008 will be given for a book published in 2006. This delay gives an opportunity for the consultative process to work well .Recent winners include notables such as; Colm Tóibín, Orhan Pamuk, Nicola Barker, David Malouf and Herta Muller amongst others.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Margaret Mahy Wins Leading American Boston Globe Horn Book Award

June 3- One of the New Zealand's best loved authors, Margaret Mahy, has won the major Picture Book Category Prize in one of America's most prestigious literary prizes , the Boston Globe Horn Book Awards. Tragic couldn't be more delighted. Southern Hemisphere talent has a good record with the Boston - last year Australian Shaun Tan's super graphic novel, The Arrival was also a winner .

Mahy, has written scores of novels, easy readers, and picture books, her winning work, Bubble Trouble, is a tongue-twisting tale about an airborne baby. It marks the New Zealander’s second collaboration with English illustrator Polly Dunbar, herself a multi-award winner.

Mahy, a winner of the world's richest children's literary award, the Hans Christian Andersen Award, is also a previous two-time recipient of Boston Globe–Horn Book Award honour book citations. Now she has landed the big one.

The judging panel for the 2009 New Zealand Aeteaoroa Storyline Notable Awards Picture Book Category, were right on the money. They had made a special mention of Bubble Trouble . Margaret's poem has been in print for many years and was therefore not eligible for inclusion in their list. However the panel considered Bubble Trouble to be a treasure for New Zealand children.

All three of the winning authors are widely renowned of this years. Terry Pratchett, winner of the Fiction/Poetry Category, is perhaps best known for his raucous comic fantasies for children and adults. In his winning book, Nation, he displays a philosophical bent with a young adult novel about two nineteenth-century children who create a new society from the ground up.

Winner of Nonfiction category Candace Fleming’s dual biography of the President and Mrs. Lincoln, The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary, employs the intricate scrapbook format that distinguished her earlier Ben Franklin’s Almanac and Our Eleanor.

2009 Picture Book Winner and Honour Books

Bubble Trouble |Old Bear | Higher! Higher!

Winner: Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy, illustrated by Polly Dunbar (Clarion)buy_from_fishpond

Little Mabel blew a bubble and it caused a lot of trouble! Such a lot of bubble trouble in a bibble-bobble way. For it broke away from Mabel as it bobbed across the table, Where it bobbled over Baby, and it wafted him away. Follow the hilarious efforts of the townsfolk as they chase the baby far across the town in an effort to get him down from the bubble safe and sound.

About the Author and Illustrator

Margaret Mahy is acknowledged all over the world as one of the outstanding children's writers of today, and has published over 200 titles. Twice winner of the Carnegie Medal, several of her titles have become modern classics. In 2006 she was presented with the Hans Christian Andersen medal, which is the highest international recognition granted to authors and illustrators of children's books. She lives in New Zealand. Polly Dunbar was born in Stratford upon Avon. Daughter of children's author Joyce Dunbar, Polly first started illustrating when she was 16 and has a degree in Illustration at the University of Brighton. She lives in Brighton, Sussex.

Honour Books

Old Bear by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow/HarperCollins)buy_from_fishpond

Beautiful illustrations infused with the color of the seasons, a deeply satisfying text, and a huggable old bear remembering the cub he once was make for an outstanding new picture book by the Caldecott Medal-winning creator of "Kitten's First Full Moon."

Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli (Candlewick) buy_from_fishpond

The creator of a popular series of board books delivers this ingenious, witty picture book that expresses a child's glee of being pushed on a swing and the wonders of the imagination. Full color.

2009 Fiction and Poetry Winner and Honour Books

Nation | The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves | The Graveyard Book

Winner: Nation by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)

buy_from_fishpondFinding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He's also completely alone - or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird and gives him a stick which can make fire. Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She's certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship's parrot. As it happens, they are not alone for long.Other survivors start to arrive to take refuge on the island they all call the Nation and then raiders accompanied by murderous mutineers from the Sweet Judy. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things - including how to milk a pig and why spitting in beer is a good thing - and start to forge a new Nation. As can be expected from Terry Pratchett, the master story-teller, this new children's novel is both witty and wise, encompassing themes of death and nationhood, while being extremely funny. Mau's ancestors have something to teach us all. Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone's lives!

About the Author

Terry Pratchett is one of the most popular authors writing today. He lives behind a keyboard in Wiltshire and says he 'doesn't want to get a life, because it feels as though he's trying to lead three already'. He was appointed OBE in 1998. He is the author of the phenomenally successful Discworld series. His first Discworld novel for children, THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS, was awarded the 2001 Carnegie Medal, while the second, THE WEE FREE MEN - the first about Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle - has been optioned by Sony Films to be made into a spectacular movie. Two of his Johnny Maxwell tales have been televised by the BBC as TV drama serials.

Honour Books

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves by buy_from_fishpondM. T. Anderson (Candlewick)

The stunning conclusion to the USA's National Book Award winner and "New York Times" bestseller recounts Octavian's experiences as the Revolutionary War explodes around him. Ultimately, this astonishing narrative escalates to a startling, deeply satisfying climax, while reexamining our national origins in a singularly provocative light.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins) buy_from_fishpond

In his first full-length novel for middle-graders since the international bestseller "Coraline," Neil Gaiman introduces Bod, a boy who is the only living resident of a graveyard. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? A winner of America's leadingbook award the Caldecott Medal.

2009 Nonfiction Winner and Honour Books

The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary | The Way We Work: Getting to Know the Amazing Human Body | Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream

Winner: The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming (Schwartz & Wade/Random House)

The award-winning author of "Ben Franklin's Almanac" and "Our Eleanor" has created an enthralling joint biography of one of the nation's greatest presidents and his complex wife unlike any other--a scrapbook history that uses photographs, letters, engravings, and even cartoons to form an enthralling museum on the page.

Honour Books

The Way We Work by David Macaulay with Richard Walker, illustrated by David Macaulay (Lorraine/Houghton)

n this comprehensive and entertaining resource, multi award-winner David Macaulay reveals the inner workings of the human body as only he can. This one-of-a-kind book takes readers on a visual journey through the human body. With his trademark humor, Macaulay builds a body and explains how it works.

Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone
(Candlewick)

When NASA was launched in 1958, 13 women proved they had as much of the right stuff as men to be astronauts, but their way to space was blocked by prejudice, insecurity, and a scrawled note written by one of Washington's most powerful men. This is the true story of the Mercury 13 women. Illustrations.

Boston Globe- Horn Book Awards

First presented in 1967 and customarily announced in June, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards are among the most prestigious honors in the field of children’s and young adult literature. Winners are selected in three categories: Picture Book, Fiction and Poetry, and Nonfiction. Two Honor Books may be named in each category.

The winning titles must be published in the United States but they may be written or illustrated by citizens of any country.The awards are chosen by an independent panel of three judges who are annually appointed by the Editor of the Horn Book Official site link

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

New Zealand Book Award Finalists- So long Montana and thanks for all the fish.

New Zealand/Aetearoa's most prestigious literary award are set to change sponsors next year with New Zealand Post taking on responsibility. Pernod Ricard New Zealand (formerly Montana Wines) is ending 13 years of sponsoring the awards at this year's ceremony in the Auckland War Memorial Museum on July 27. So, a hearty thanks to them for their patronage over the years and all hail New Zealand Post who are stepping in.

Possibly a tad clumsy , the 'New Zealand Post New Zealand Book Awards'. - might need some work. Tragic wonders whether we will see a merging of the grown-up awards and NZ Post sponsored Children's and Young Adult Awards a bit further down the track? Now that would be a ginormous award night night of nights.

Anyhow, the 2009 finalist have been posted with many books spread over eleven categories. Full list and book details below. Links to Fishpond New Zealand data-base for more information. The category links are connected to Tragic's NZ Aetearoa Book Awards website (coding challenge) so don't be surprised if you get whisked off into cyberspace.
The rather unconnected cartoon mash-up (doing them keeps Tragic sane), was prompted by a conversation with a fellow train passenger. The charming young man was reading an ebook on his lap top whilst Tragic was reading a hard-back copy of the vastly entertaining (and admittedly weighty) A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz. Seeing Tragic engrossed in the book the lad opened up a chat by sharing the fact that along with his CDs (swapping to all MP3's) he was also getting rid of his physical book collection in favour of ebooks. He claimed an environmental motivation and felt he was saving trees. Whilst Tragic appreciated his moral stance and the Zen aspect of his minimalist approach to clutter, the thought of life without caressing a book each evening was just too much to bear.

Montana New Zealand Book Award Finalists

The Crocus HourFiction | Poetry | Biography | Environment | History | Illustrative | Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture | Reference and Anthology | NZSA First Book | NZSA Poetry | NZSA Nonfiction

FICTION

The Crocus Hour by Charlotte Randall (Penguin Group New Zealand).buy_from_fishpond

The first half of this new novel is set in Crete in 1981. The narrator is a young man who has come to a small, religious village for a holiday. In the main village cafe, he meets a New Zealand man, Henry Davis, who befriends him. Henry Davis soon reveals that his daughter Sally had gone missing in the village in 1979. Over a period of weeks, Henry slowly builds up a picture of his daughter and her friend Jane and explores the baffling circumstances of Sally's disappearance. He escorts the narrator to various parts of the island, More The Rehearsal

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton (Victoria University Press).buy_from_fishpond

A high-school sex scandal jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own potency and power.The sudden and total publicity seems to turn every act into a performance, and every platform into a stage. But when the local drama school decides to turn the scandal into a show, the real world and the world of the theatre are forced to meet, and soon the boundaries between private and public begin to dissolve. More

The 10pm Question by Kate de Goldi (Longacre Press)buy_from_fishpond

Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man, an apparently sensible, talented boy with a drumbeat of The 10PM Questionworrying questions steadily gaining volume in his head: Are the smoke alarm batteries flat? Does the cat,and therefore the rest of the family, have worms? Will bird flu strike and ruin life as we know it? Is the Kidney-shaped spot on his chest actually a galloping cancer? Only Ma takes seriously his catalogue of persistent queries. But it is Ma who is the cause of the most worrying question of all, the one that Frankie can never bring himself to ask. Then the new girl arrives at school and has questions of her own: relentless, unavoidable questions. So begins the unravelling of Frankie Parsons's carefully controlled world. More

Acid Song by Bernard Beckett(Longacre Press).

It's election day in contemporary New Zealand. A young father confronts a teenage burglar. A psychologist's buy_from_fishpondpolitical Acid Song: a Novelstand threatens to see him driven from the university community. A staffroom argument flares up - does a play-ground fight warrant a student's expulsion? A young girl sets about mending her broken heart, a skinhead riot erupts and Richard, the biology lecturer at the heart of this simmering forty-eight hours, must deal with the secret which compels them all, unknowingly, to the same conclusion.

In Acid Song, an absorbing and darting novel, a varied cast of characters is linked by chance and circumstance. With a powerful, addictive intensity Bernard Beckett composes a corrosive song of our times. More

Novel About My Wife by Emily Perkins (Allen & Unwin). buy_from_fishpond

Novel about My Wife

A chilling gothic tale about a gorgeous young wife's descent into madness, from a rising literary star.
When Tom moves with his wife, Ann, from their tiny Camden flat into a large house in Hackney, he feels as if it's the start of the rest of their life together. Deeply in love, and with a baby on the way, Tom thinks everything is finally coming together. He and Ann anticipate the arrival of the baby, as Ann, particularly galvanized, spends hours cleaning and reorganizing the house, and sitting up all night talking with a renewed passion about life, love, and art. But there is a darker side to this new fervor, somehow linked with her conviction that someone is lingering threateningly around their new home. Someone who--Tom soon realizes--may not exist at all. More

POETRY

Get Some

Get Some by Sonja Yelich (Auckland University Press). buy_from_fishpond

Sonja Yelich's new collection is a daring departure from the award- winning Clung. It follows an American marine, Edgar, serving in Iraq, and the responses of his family back home to his tour of 'doody'. Yelich vividly contrasts his life with his family's, and serves up a whirlwind of perspectives on the war and contemporary American life from The Sopranos to Black Hawk Down, YouTube to SUVs. The narrative of Edgar and his family begins to fragment through the book as the horror of war deepens - a marine loses a leg and a plane 'breaks its nose on / Poor visibility in summer'. Yelich, highlighting the confusion of war, leaves a reader guessing as to Edgar's eventual fate. Chilling, funny, deeply sad and immensely thought-provoking, get some is the work of a writer pushing the capacities of language to express the potential of violence to erupt in everyday life. More buy_from_fishpond

The Lakes of Mars by Chris Orsman (Auckland University Press).

The Lakes of Mars

The Lakes of Mars is a stunning new collection of poems by Chris Orsman that follow on from his most recent book, South: An Antarctic Journey, a sequence about Captain Scott's final expedition to Antarctica. These new poems are a characteristic mix of thoughtful reflection and precise imagery of landscape and object. Chris Orsman captures 'the plainness of life' with a visual clarity, but always pushes his descriptions further, broadening the poems 'into intellectual and moral meaning'. He is also particularly good at vividly recreating historical moments, while evoking the gifts and loss of the past. The first part of The Lakes of Mars encompasses the Wellington hills; a wonderful long poem of the camera and its nostalgia, read more

The Rocky Shore by Jenny Bornholdt (Victoria University Press).buy_from_fishpond

The six long poems which make up The Rocky Shore were written over the course of six years. Together, theyare as much autobiographical essay as long poem, and Jenny Bornholdt's most significant The Rocky Shoreachievement to date.

Jenny Bornholdt is a poet and anthologist. Born in Lower Hutt in 1960, she holds a BA in English Literature and a Diploma in Journalism. She attended Bill Manhire’s original composition course at Victoria University of Wellington in 1984.

She is the author of a number of collections of poetry including Summer (April 2003) and These Days (2000) and Miss New Zealand: Selected Poems which was published in 1997 and this contains work from her four earliest collections of poetry This Big Face (1988), Moving House (1989), Waiting Shelter (1991) and How We Met (1995). She was Te Mata Estate New Zealand Poet Laureate 2005–2007.

Fiction | Poetry | Biography | Environment | History | Illustrative | Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture | Reference and Anthology | NZSA First Book | NZSA Poetry | NZSA Nonfiction

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BIOGRAPHY

Rita Angus: An Artist's Life by Jill Trevelyan (Te Papa Press).

Rita Angus: An Artist's Life

Rita Angus was a pioneer of modern painting during the 1930s and 1940s who went on to become one of New buy_from_fishpondZealanda??s leading 20th century artists. Today, more than 100 years after her birth, works such as Rutu (1951) Central Otago (1940) and Portrait of Betty Curnow (1941-1942) have become national icons, while Angus is perhaps New Zealand's best-loved painter. Yet the story of her life remains little known and poorly understood, and until now little has been written about it. In this revelatory and subtle book, Jill Trevelyan traces Angus's entire life, from her childhood in Napier and Palmerston North to her death in Wellington in 1970. Drawing on a wealth of newly available archives and letters, she brings to life Rita Angus the person: highly articulate and full of zest, intellectually curious and forthright in her attitudes and emotions, powerfully committed to her pacifist and feminist beliefs and dedicated, above all, to life as an artist. Rita Angus: An The Love School: Personal EssaysArtist's Life is generously illustrated with more than 150 artworks and private photographs to bring Angus - her private struggles and public reputation and her greatest legacy, her art - to complex, colourful life. More

The Love School: Personal Essays by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press).buy_from_fishpond

The Love School collects more than twenty years of Elizabeth Knox’s non-fiction. These frank and revealingessays and talks tell the story of her writing’s beginnings, while later pieces give insights into the life of an author, and touch on the imaginative roots of Knox’s novels. More

Heaphy by Iain Sharp (Auckland University Press).buy_from_fishpond

Heaphy: Artist, Explorer, Settler

Born in England c1820, Englishman Charles Heaphy - the first 'New Zealander' to win the Victoria Cross, the first European to explore the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island and the most distinguished 19th-century landscape painter in that country is, by any measure, a central figure in colonial history. In this engaging book, lavishly illustrated with Heaphy's paintings, drawings and maps, author Iain Sharp reveals the story of Heaphy's life and art.From his earliest surviving watercolour of birdlife in the Marlborough Sounds in August 1839 to his last known sketch on the back of an envelope, showing Maori witnesses at a Native Land Court hearing in December 1879, Charles Heaphy's paintings and drawings represent a remarkable visual diary of settler life read more

Fiction | Poetry | Biography | Environment | History | Illustrative | Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture | Reference and Anthology | NZSA First Book | NZSA Poetry | NZSA Nonfiction

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ENVIRONMENT

A Continent on the Move: New Zealand Geoscience into the 21st Century

A Continent on the Move: New Zealand Geoscience into the 21st Century edited by Ian Graham (Geological Society ofbuy_from_fishpond New Zealand).

Adrift in the South Pacific Ocean, separated from the rest of the world by vast distances and blessed with some of the most varied and spectacular natural landscapes on Earth, New Zealand is rather special. Generations of geoscientists have developed an increasing understanding of what makes New Zealand geologically unique and why. Highlights of this research, including many discoveries of global significance, are presented in this book. A Continent on the Move explains what makes New Zealand tick geologically, and illustrates Into the Wider World: a Back Country Miscellanythe ways that geoscience research can make this country a better place in which to live. This book will be a stimulating addition to any read more

Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellany by Brian Turner (Random House New Zealand). buy_from_fishpond

Brian Turner is one of this country's best-known and best-loved poets and also one of its most determined conservationists. In this beautifully illustrated anthology he brings together both old and new essays, columns, articles and poetry that concentrate on the wild places and outdoor pursuits he loves and of which he is such an unabashed, articulate and passionate champion. More

Albatross: Their World, Their Ways

Albatross: Their World, Their Ways by Tui De Roy and Mark Jones (David Bateman).buy_from_fishpond

The albatross is a creature of legend, poetry and dreams. But today, over three-quarters of albatross species are edging towards extinction. This book is a celebration of these amazing birds, featuring photographs by award-winning wildlife photographer Tui De Roy, the latest research by leading international experts and a factual natural history. More

Fiction | Poetry | Biography | Environment | History | Illustrative | Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture | Reference and Anthology | NZSA First Book | NZSA Poetry | NZSA Nonfiction

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HISTORY

First, Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand CookingFirst Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking by David Veart (Auckland University Press).buy_from_fishpond

'First catch your Weka', the explorer Charles Heaphy advised in 1842, then stuff it with sage andonion and roast it on a stick. In that simple way began a great tradition of New Zealand cooking, from Heaphy to the Edmonds Cookery Book, Alison Holst, Hudson and Halls, and the meal on your plate today. In this book, David Veart tells the story of what New Zealanders cooked through the recipes we used. Analysing the crusty deposits and grubby thumb prints on a century and a half of cook books, Veart chronicles the extraordinary foods that we have loved: from boiled calf's head to the Bill Rowling cake, Irish famine soup to tinned kidneys with mushrooms. First Catch your Weka illuminates the basic elements that make New Zealand cooking distinctive and reveals how our cuisine and our culture have changed. Throughout that history, Veart finds a people who frequently first liked to catch their weka - building a meal out of oysters taken from the rocks, vegetables from the garden and a Mates and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealandlamb from the neighbouring farm. By telling the history of what we ate, First Catch your Weka tells us a great deal about who we have been. More

Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand by Chris Brickell (Random House New Zealand).buy_from_fishpond

What are the historical changes through which the modern gay New Zealander has emerged? If he has not always been with us, then who preceded him? A landmark publication, this first-ever New Zealand gay male history combines lively and engaging scholarship with a remarkable collection of images. Chris Brickell tells the evolving story of New Zealand gay men through the lives of clerks, labourers, shop assistants, soldiers, actors and writers of all classes, and he shows that our erotic past was vibrant, complex and often surprising. With over 300 fascinating images, many never seen previously. MoreBuying the Land, Selling the Land: Governments and Maori Land on the North Island 1865-1921

Buying the Land, Selling the Land by Richard Boast (Victoria University Press).buy_from_fishpond

This is a study of Crown Maori land policy and practice in the period 1865–1929. The story the book tells is in many ways a bleak and grim one of a tsunami of Crown purchasing crashing over a people who were in very difficult circumstances. Yet Buying the Land, Selling the Land is something of a reaction to the ‘the-Crown-has-been-very-naughty’ school of New Zealand history. Alienation of land by sale requires two parties, a buyer and a seller. This book is about both. More

Fiction | Poetry | Biography | Environment | History | Illustrative | Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture | Reference and Anthology | NZSA First Book | NZSA Poetry | NZSA Nonfiction

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ILLUSTRATIVEbuy_from_fishpond

Peter Peryer, Photographer

Peter Peryer: Photographer by Peter Simpson with photos by Peter Peryer (Auckland University Press).

Peter Peryer is one of New Zealand's leading contemporary photographers. Peryer is also an innovative photographer, constantly refining his photographic practice, notably with his embrace of digital photography from 1998 and increasing interest in colour. Peter Peryer: Photographer includes a section of eighty photographs, the largest body of Peryer's work yet assembled, personally selected by the photographer. A wide-ranging introduction to Peryer's work, by Peter Simpson, and an illustrated autobiographical essay by Peryer himself are also included. Interested in doubles, pattern and repetition, problems of scale, the surreal and the grotesque, Peryer's work most often focuses on the 'thingness' of his subjects and objects. More Certain Words Drawn

Certain Words Drawn by John Reynolds (Random House New Zealand).

John Reynolds is one of New Zealand's most significant and most admired contemporary artists. An Arts Laureate, his Cloud was last year a centrepiece of the Sydney Bienale, at which he was New Zealand's representative, a rare honour for a New Zealand painter. Certain Words Drawn brings together examples of his recent work and practice in a stunning book designed by Arch McDonnell of InHouse Design. Magnificently packaged, this book is a limited edition of 1500 copies only, each numbered and signed by the artist. Edited by University of Auckland professor Laurence Simmons, the book is generously laden with images and contains essays by interalia Frank Stark, Andrew Clifford, Tessa Laird, Nicholas Stevens, Dianne Bardsley, Ian Wedde Shirley and Roger Horrocks, and Leigh Davis

Len Castle: Making the Molecules Dance by Len Castle (Lopdell House Gallery).

Len Castle’s potting career, which started in 1947, spans the emergence, flourishing and subsequent transformation of the craft movement of the 20th century. His work epitomises its vitality, its deeply indigenous origins and the sophistication of its craftsmanship and artistry. He has been described as a ‘national treasure’.

Fiction | Poetry | Biography | Environment | History | Illustrative | Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture | Reference and Anthology | NZSA First Book | NZSA Poetry | NZSA Nonfiction

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The Pavlova Story: a Slice of New Zealand's Culinary History

LIFESTYLE AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand's Culinary History by Helen Leach (Otago University Press).buy_from_fishpond dessert cake said to emulate the lightness of the famous ballerina, Anna Pavlova), the real story of the ballerina's

While Australians and New Zealanders have long debated which country invented the pavlova (a large meringue visit to the Antipodes and the emergence of three different pavlovas was neglected. The contributions of a gelatine manufacturer, a Dunedin spinster, and numerous other New Zealand housewives are all revealed in this fascinating contribution to food history. The book shows the evolution of the three pavlova types, that their recipes have never been set in stone, and that creative and innovative cooks have played the most important roles in transforming a fashionable afternoon tea cake into an iconic dessert. More

Ladies, a Plate: Traditional Home Baking

Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home Baking by Alexa Johnston (Penguin Group New Zealand). buy_from_fishpond

There is a good chance you can remember a time when the family cake tins were always full of biscuits, slices, fruit loaves and cakes baked by mothers, aunts and grandmothers. And, of course, home-made sponges, ginger loaves, lamingtons, custard squares were an integral part of all special occasions - whether it was a birthday, a christening, a wedding or a wake. In Ladies, A Plate, Alexa Johnston looks back to this gentler time and shares her favourite traditional New Zealand recipes. An avid collector of community cookbooks, Alexa also writes about the history of some New Zealand baking classics, showing how our favourite recipes evolved over time. This gorgeous book contains over ninety recipes and will be treasured by every kitchen enthusiast, whether in your twenties or your nineties. More

Art Icons of New Zealand

Art Icons of New Zealand: Lines in the Sand by Oliver Stead (David Bateman). buy_from_fishpond

Certain images, art objects and art styles have embedded themselves in the consciousness of many New Zealanders. But why and how have they become part of our visual vocabulary? Oliver Stead has had the difficult task of not only selecting 40 of these iconic works but putting them into a context of New Zealand art history.

Fiction | Poetry | Biography | Environment | History | Illustrative | Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture | Reference and Anthology | NZSA First Book | NZSA Poetry | NZSA Nonfiction

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REFERENCE AND ANTHOLOGY

The Painted Garden in New Zealand Art by Christopher Johnstone (Random House New Zealand).buy_from_fishpond

From James Busby on, European settlers made gardens from the moment they set foot on New The Painted GardenZealand soil, and of course Maori had extensive cultivations of kumara around their kainga. Many settler gardens were matters of survival - kitchen gardens on which families were reliant - but as individual circumstances allowed and prosperity spread, many gardens became increasingly ambitious and extensive. It is hardly surprising that artists were drawn to depicting them, as they have from the 1820s right through to the present day. This collection of 100 delightful works, selected by Christopher Johnstone, author of the highly successful LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS OF NEW ZEALAND: A JOURNEY FROM NORTH TO SOUTH, tells the story of our gardening history as it intersected with our cultural and artistic development. Beautifully packaged and carefully researched, it is a treasure trove of magnificent images, many of gardens now lost to the passage of time. More

The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: v. 5: 1922

The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 5: 1922 edited by Vincent O'Sullivan and Margaret Scott (Oxford University Press).buy_from_fishpond

The fifth and final volume of the Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield covers the almost thirteen months during which her attention at first was firmly set on a last chance medical cure, then finally on something very different - if death came to seem inevitable, how should one behave in the time that remained, so one could truly say one lived? Mansfield's biographers, like her friends, have wondered at the seemingly extraordinary decision to ditch conventional medicine, for the bizarre choice of Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Fontainebleau. These letters show the clarity of mind and will that led to that decision, the courage and distress in making it, and the gaiety even once it was made. She went against what her education, her husband, and most of her friends would regard as reasonable, as she opted to spend her last months with Russian emigres and a strange assortment of Gurdjieff disciples (which she was not). More

Collected Poems, 1951-2006

Collected Poems 1951-2006 by C.K. Stead (Auckland University Press).buy_from_fishpond

This Collected Poems includes the work of fourteen volumes of poetry, from Stead's first collection, Whether the Will is Free, to The Black River of 2007. In addition, it reprints 22 early previously uncollected poems that date from 1951 to 1961. Annotated by the author, the Collected Poems illustrates more than fifty years of the range and ambition of Stead's verse, in which the world always looks 'hard / at the word and the / word at the world'. More

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FICTION

The Year of the Shanghai Shark

The Year of the Shanghai Shark by Mo Zhi Hong (Penguin Group New Zealand). buy_from_fishpond

Hai Long is a teenager living in the Chinese city of Dalian. It's the year of the SARS epidemic in China. This is a modern China that's eye-catchingly contemporary. Hai Long and his mates drink Coca-Cola and eat American fast food. They watch American NBA basketball on television and argue whether Michael Jordan is the greatest player ever. They go to English language lessons and hilariously mock Karl, their hopelessly naive Canadian teacher, who drinks too much beer and is just dying to get away to Thai beaches to hang Misconductout with German babes. This is also the year in which Hai Long leaves school to learn the unlikely trade of his uncle. 'Uncle' has many books, but he's actually a highly successful professional pick-pocket who specialises in robbing dazed foreigners - Koreans and Japanese as well as Europeans - and makes special trips to Beijing for the purpose. More

Misconduct by Bridget van der Zijpp (Victoria University Press).

Misconduct is a moving novel about the possibility of reinvention, the sweet and sour taste of revenge, and a woman's search for friendship and love. More

The RehearsalThe Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton (Victoria University Press).buy_from_fishpond

A high-school sex scandal jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own potency and power.The sudden and total publicity seems to turn every act into a performance, and every platform into a stage. But when the local drama school decides to turn the scandal into a show, the real world and the world of the theatre are forced to meet, and soon the boundaries between private and public begin to dissolve. More

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POETRY

Everything Talks | The Propaganda Poster Girl | The World's Fastest Flower

Everything Talks by Sam Sampson (Auckland University Press).buy_from_fishpond

"Everything Talks" is AUP's first collection of poetry by up-and-coming Auckland poet Sam Sampson. Organised in sections ('An Arena of Reflected Caches', 'Mirror Mirror', 'Orpheus at Whatipu', 'Frisson', 'The Dirty Monk', 'The Deep End'), "Everything Talks" has a resonant overall cohesiveness; the poems are original and contradictory: earthy, cryptic, exquisite in turn. Sampson has an ear for the lilting phrase, and his poems - 'attuned to the day's inflections' - have a gentle ebb and flow, which is often echoed visually by the way the poems are laid out upon the page. This tidal lyricism is never fragile or overly lavish and often a marvellous stanza is undercut - 'sounds are askew' - by a laconic expression or surprisingly forthright final image. More

The Propaganda Poster Girl by Amy Brown (Victoria University Press).buy_from_fishpond

Insightful and intelligent, this compelling collection of poems touches on themes of memory, travel, and the unconscious. With images and scenes carrying the burden of disclosure, these pieces create a thoughtful and provocative narrative along with a palpable and engaging outside world. More

The World's Fastest Flower by Charlotte Simmonds (Victoria University Press).

NON-FICTION

First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking by David Veart (Auckland University Press).buy_from_fishpond

'First catch your Weka', the explorer Charles Heaphy advised in 1842, then stuff it with sage and First, Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cookingonion and roast it on a stick. In that simple way began a great tradition of New Zealand cooking, from Heaphy to the Edmonds Cookery Book, Alison Holst, Hudson and Halls, and the meal on your plate today. In this book, David Veart tells the story of what New Zealanders cooked through the recipes we used. Analysing the crusty deposits and grubby thumb prints on a century and a half of cook books, Veart chronicles the extraordinary foods that we have loved: from boiled calf's head to the Bill Rowling cake, Irish famine soup to tinned kidneys with mushrooms. First Catch your Weka illuminates the basic elements that make New Zealand cooking distinctive and reveals how our cuisine and our culture have changed. Throughout that history, Veart finds a people who frequently first liked to catch their weka - building a meal out of oysters taken from the rocks, vegetables from the garden and a lamb from the neighbouring farm. By telling the history of what we ate, First Catch your Weka tells us a great deal about who we have been. More

Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand by Chris Brickell (Random House New Zealand).buy_from_fishpond

Mates and Lovers: A History of Gay New ZealandWhat are the historical changes through which the modern gay New Zealander has emerged? If he has not always been with us, then who preceded him? A landmark publication, this first-ever New Zealand gay male history combines lively and engaging scholarship with a remarkable collection of images. Chris Brickell tells the evolving story of New Zealand gay men through the lives of clerks, labourers, shop assistants, soldiers, actors and writers of all classes, and he shows that our erotic past was vibrant, complex and often surprising. With over 300 fascinating images, many never seen previously. More

Nga Tama Toa, The Price of Citizenship - C Company 28 (Maori) Battalion 1939-1945 by Monty Soutar (David Bateman). buy_from_fishpond

Nga Tama Toa: the Price of Citizenship : C Company 28 (Maori) Battalion 1939-1945

The fascinating story of C Company, Maori Battalion told through personal recollections, eyewitness accounts, numerous anecdotes and fantastic photographs. At times heart-rending, at times heart-warming, this impressive book captures the special 'spirit' of the Maori Battalion - an amazing story that documents the stories of those who were actually there. More

Fiction | Poetry | Biography | Environment | History | Illustrative | Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture | Reference and Anthology | NZSA First Book | NZSA Poetry | NZSA Nonfiction

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