The shortlist for the 2012 Man Booker Prize has been announced this morning. The six nominated novels are:
“Biography” of cancer wins award
1 December 2011 by Leave a Comment
The Emperor of All Maladies, a biography of cancer by oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee, has won The Guardian First Book award and the £10,000 prize. Mukherjee’s book beat four novels on the shortlist including Booker nominated Pigeon English. Started as a small journal attempting to answer patients’ questions about their illness, the book grew…
Top Ten: Books On My Christmas List
18 November 2011 by Leave a Comment
Christmas is coming, Santa’s nearly here. Hooray. I’ll try not to get too excited too early and frustrate everyone but it’s mid-November, perfect timing to start thinking about the festive season. I’m now getting daily text messages from my mum updating me on her shopping…
Julian Barnes Wins Booker Prize
18 October 2011 by Leave a Comment
Dame Stella Rimmington, former head of MI6 and chair of the 2011 Man Booker judging panel, announced tonight that Julian Barnes had won the prestigious award for his novel The Sense of an Ending. This was Barnes’ fourth nomination and he was clearly relieved to have won at last. In her speech Rimmington took aim at the critics who had accused this year’s shortlist of being too dumbed down. And rightly so…
The Slap
1 September 2011 by 5 Comments
One of last year’s big publishing hits was Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap. It won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and author John Boyne called it “one of the three or four truly great novels of the new millennium”
Richard & Judy autumn picks announced
31 August 2011 by 1 Comment
Richard & Judy, in partnership with WHSmith, have announced their selection for the autumn bookclub. In the year since the bookclub was launched over three million copies of the selected titles have been sold. The latest crop includes the wonderfully named The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and the Booker Prize long-listed Jamrach’s Menagerie. The first book to be reviewed is The End of Everything by Megan Abbott, a story of innocence lost and burgeoning sexuality.
CWA Daggers Shortlists Announced
26 August 2011 by Leave a Comment
The Crime Writers’ Association has announced the shortlists for their prestigious Dagger awards. Nominees for the top prize – the Gold Dagger Award for the Best Crime Novel of the Year – are:
Room
18 August 2011 by Leave a Comment
The harrowing story of a child born into horror
Like lots of people there’s part of me that believes that I could write a best-selling novel. I read the papers or watch the news and get inspiration for stories but I never actually seem to get anywhere with writing them. That wasn’t the case for novelist Emma Donoghue ….
Man Booker longlist announced
3 August 2011 by Leave a Comment
The longlist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize has been announced. Early bookies’ favourite is former winner Alan Hollinghurst with The Stranger’s Child but I’m really pleased to see four first-time novelists included on the list and they certainly can’t be ruled out at this stage. I tend to dislike Booker winners finding them self-indulgent and rather dull, but each year I read the list and pick up the winner. I hope this year’s will be one that I love, maybe 2011 is my year?