Hensher wins Ondaatje Prize

Philip Hensher

| By Charlotte Williams

Philip Hensher’s Scenes from an Early Life (Fourth Estate) has won the £10,000 2013 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize.

The book, a semi-fictional account of the childhood of Hensher’s Bengali husband, was praised as “an unostentatious tour de force” by judge Margaret Drabble. Author Julia Blackburn, another judge, said: “Hensher performs a fascinating act of ventriloquism, taking on the voice of his Bangladeshi husband, who was born in Dacca in 1970, when East Pakistan was on the edge of fighting a bloody war of independence. Maybe it is the fact of being an outsider, while at the same time being intimately connected with his narrator, that enabled Hensher to describe the hubbub of a country’s political transition with such immediacy; we enter an unfamiliar world with him and smell and taste and hear it on all sides.”

Click here to read the rest of this story

Harold Fry on Commonwealth Book Prize shortlist

 

 | By Charlotte Williams

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Transworld), longlisted for the Man Booker, is one of three UK debuts shortlisted for the £10,000 Commonwealth Book Prize.

The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell (Windmill), a tale of two sisters after the death of their parents, and The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood (Simon & Schuster), a story set among Cambridge students, also make the shortlist.

Indian novel Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil, published in the UK by Faber, is also shortlisted; the book was shortlisted for the Man Booker last year.

Click here to read the rest of this story

Shehadeh in contention for second Orwell Prize

Raja Shehadeh

| By Charlotte Williams

Author Raja Shehadeh is in the running to win the Orwell Prize for a second time, with Random House the most nominated publisher on the shortlist for the £3,000 prize.

Raja Shehadeh’s Occupation Diaries (Profile Books), about daily life in Palestine, is among the titles on the seven-strong shortlist, with Injustice by Clive Stafford Smith (Harvill Secker), examining the US justice system, and A Very British Killing by A T Williams (Jonathan Cape), about the killing of a hotel receptionist in Iraq by British Army troops, the two Random House titles on the list.

Shedhadeh previously won the prize in 2008 for Palestinian Walks, while Stafford Smith was also on the shortlist that year for Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay.

Click here to read the rest of this story

Folio to sponsor Literature Prize; stellar Academy revealed

 | By Charlotte Williams

The Folio Society has been announced as sponsor of the Literature Prize, the new award co-founded by Aitken Alexander director Andrew Kidd.

In an announcement at the British Library last night (13th March), organisers revealed the £40,000 prize, which aims to “celebrate the best English-language fiction from around the world”, will now be known as The Folio Prize.

The organisers also revealed a stellar and international list of over 110 authors and critics —including many of the biggest names in books—who have agreed to become members of the Folio Prize Academy, which judges the award.

Ian McEwan, J M Coetzee, Peter Carey, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Philip Pullman and Jeanette Winterson are among them; they are joined by literary editors including Claire Armitstead (the Guardian), Gaby Wood (the Telegraph) and Erica Wagner (the Times), as well as Granta editor John Freeman. The Academy members are listed in full below.

The inaugural award will be presented in March 2014 for books published in the UK between 1st January and 31st December 2013, written originally in English from authors anywhere around the globe, and published in any form or from any genre.

The Academy will choose 60 titles, and then pick an additional 20 books from publisher nominations. The five judges of the prize will be Academy members, and will be drawn by lots in July. The panel must include three members from the UK, and two from outside the UK, and there must be no more than three members of the same gender. Five names will be drawn randomly from the two groups alternately, starting with those from the UK.

The selected judges then choose a shortlist of eight books, which will be announced in February 2014.

Click here to read the rest of this story

Doyle on Carnegie shortlist

Roddy Doyle

| By Charlotte Williams

Roddy Doyle has become only the second author ever to have the chance of winning both the Booker Prize and the CILIP Carnegie Medal, with his book, A Greyhound of a Girl (Marion Lloyd Books), among those shortlisted for the prestigious children’s prize this year.

Meanwhile, Helen Oxenbury and Emily Gravett are each on course for an unprecedented third win of the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal, with both illustrators featuring on the eight-strong shortlist.

The awards, which honour writing for children and children’s illustration respectively, and are supported by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), are judged by a panel of children’s librarians.

Click here to read the rest of this story

Faulks to write new Jeeves and Wooster novel

 

Sebastian Faulks

| By Charlotte Williams

Sebastian Faulks is to write a new Jeeves and Wooster novel, expanding the humorous series written by P G Wodehouse, with the title commissioned by the author’s estate.

Hutchinson will publish the new novel, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, on 6th November.

The book will be “faithful to the history and personality of Wodehouse’s characters but by shining a different light on them will also show how robust, durable and lovable these creations are”, according to the publisher.

Click here to read the rest of this story

Spooky winner for Red House Children’s Book Award

 | By Charlotte Williams

Corgi title Spooky Spooky House by Andrew Weale and illustrated by Lee Wildish has won this year’s Red House Children’s Book Award.

The book won the Younger Children category before going on to be named overall winner, while Gangsta Granny by David Walliams, illustrated by Tony Ross (HarperCollins Children’s Books), scooped the top prize in the Younger Readers category. The Medusa Project: Hit Squad by Sophie McKenzie (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books) won in the Older Readers category.

Click here to read the rest of this story

Shortlists revealed for Waterstones Children’s Book Prize

 | By Charlotte Williams

Random House Children’s Books, Egmont and Little Tiger Press have each picked up two nominations across the three categories of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, with the shortlists for the £5,000 prize revealed today.

Among the nominated titles in the 5-12 category is The Chronicles of Egg: Deadweather and Sunrise (Puffin), a debut novel written by Geoff Rodkey who wrote for MTV’s animated series “Beavis and Butt-head”. The book will be competing against titles including Wonder by R J Palacio (Random House Children’s Books), Barry Loser: I am Not a Loser by Jim Smith (Egmont) and The Wolf Princess by Cathryn Constable (Chicken House).

In the teen category, the second novel by Branford Boase Award-winning Annabel Pitcher, Ketchup Clouds, is up against titles including Skin Deep by Laura Jarratt (Egmont) and Insignia by S J Kincaid (Hot Key Books).

In the picture books category, Can You See Sassoon? by Sam Usher (Little Tiger Press) will be battling against books including Oh No George! by Chris Haughton (Walker) and Lunchtime by Rebecca Cobb (Macmillan Children’s Books).

Click here to read the rest of this story

Quarter of adults ‘have barely read a book in past six months’

 | By Charlotte Williams

A quarter of UK adults—more than 12 million people—have only picked up a book to read for pleasure once, or less than once, in the past six months, according to new research commissioned by literacy campaign Quick Reads.

A YouGov poll of just over 2,000 people also revealed that nearly one in 10 adults claim they never read books, with 29% of those surveyed who have read once every six months or less citing time pressures as the reason.

Click here to read the rest of this story

Book site Bookish launches

| By Charlotte Williams

Book retail website Bookish has launched, featuring content including book recommendations, extracts, articles by a dedicated editorial staff, and partnerships with the Onion and USA Today which are aimed at driving readers to the site.

The initiative is backed by Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster in the US. Users can sign up to receive newsletters, book and author news and create personal bookshelves, and share content over social media and email.

The recommendation engine on the site is fed by Bookish editors, authors, book editors and publishers.

Click here to read the rest of this story