Sandstone longlisted for Desmond Elliott Prize

 | By Katie Allen

Scottish indie publisher Sandstone Press has scored a nomination on the longlist for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2013 with Kevin Smith’s Jammy Dodger.

Indie Serpent’s Tail also scores a place with Petite Mort by Beatrice Hitchman.

Hitchman joins six other women on the shortlist of 10, with The Marlowe Papers by Ros Barber (Sceptre); The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan (Wm Heinemann); and The Palace of Curiosities by Rosie Garland (HarperFiction) joined by Signs of Life by Anna Raverat (Picador), Wendy Wallace’s The Painted Bridge (S&S) and Seldom Seen by Sarah Ridgard (Hutchinson).

The shortlist is completed by The Fields by Kevin Maher (Little, Brown) and The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence (Hodder).

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Mantel, Tremain, Keneally on Walter Scott shortlist

Hilary Mantel

| By Katie Allen

Novels ranging from Tudor England to the battlefields of the Western Front have been shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, with Hilary Mantel adding another nomination to her prize haul for Bring Up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)

Mantel won in 2010 for Wolf Hall.

The £25,000 prize is rewarded to a book written in English, with the majority of its setting being at least 60 years ago.

 

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Moggach and DeWitt on Wodehouse shortlist

Deborah Moggach

| By Katie Allen

Authors Deborah Moggach and Helen DeWitt are both shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, which has only been won once by a woman in the prize’s 14 years, when Marina Lewycka won for A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian in 2005.

Moggach is shortlisted for Heartbreak Hotel (Chatto) and DeWitt for Lightning Rods (And Other Stories). Previous winners Howard Jacobson and Michael Frayn are also in the running with Zoo Time (Bloomsbury) and Skios (Faber) respectively. England’s Lane by Joseph Connolly (Quercus) completes the list.

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Plutocrats wins Lionel Gieber Prize

Chrystia Freeland

|By  Katie Allen

Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats has won the 2013 Lionel Gelber Prize.

The $15,000 (£9,900) annual prize celebrates the world’s best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues.

Freeland’s book, published by Penguin and Doubleday Canada, was awarded for its “immediacy and authority about the future”. Chair of judges William Thorsell said: “This year’s shortlist offered a wealth of opportunity to the jury. These are immensely erudite and creative books about where the world has been, and how it is becoming . . .

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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.

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And Other Stories signs Ivan Vladislavić

 | By Katie Allen

And Other Stories has acquired the new novel by prize-winning South African author Ivan Vladislavić.

World English language Rights (excluding South Africa) in Double Negative were acquired from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann.

The novel focuses on apartheid-era university dropout Neville Lister whose life is changed when he is sent to meet photographer Saul Auerbach.

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M R Hall reveals crime writing “secrets”

M R Hall

| By  Katie Allen

The Chosen Dead author and “Kavanagh QC” scriptwriter M R Hall has launched a free online crime-writing course, with a competition for crime-writers.

Seven Secrets of Successful Crime Writing comprises a series of weekly videos, each covering a different aspect of crime writing including such “secrets” as: “However big the story, it must take place within a confined world” and “The central character must have a moral centre, but also be conflicted on many levels”. Each week there will also be a detailed worksheet, with podcasts also available.

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Five on Marsh Award shortlist

|By  Katie Allen

Orion Children’s Books has scored two of the shortlist for the Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation with tales by Carlos Ruiz Zafron and Mithaa Alkhayyat.

The award, administered by the English-Speaking Union on behalf of the Marsh Christian Trust, celebrates the “high quality and diversity of translated fiction for young readers”. The prize of £2,000 goes to the translator.

Lucia Grave is shortlisted for her translation from the Spanish of Carlos Ruiz Zafron’s The Midnight Train, alongside Fatima Sharafeddini’s translation from the Arabic of My Own Special Way by Mithaa Akhayyat,retold by Vivian French.

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Campbell and Robinson on political book awards shortlists

| By Katie Allen

Alastair Campbell and Mary Robinson are among the authors shortlisted for the inaugural Paddy Power and Total Politics Book Awards, set up to celebrate excellence across all areas of political publishing.

The new prize includes nine categories, including the £10,000 Political Book of the Year, for which Campbell and Nick Robinson go head to head; the £3,000 Debut Political Book of the Year, with nominees including Ian Cobain  and Gaby Hinsliff; and the Young Political Writer of the Year, aimed at authors under the age of 30 at the time their book was published, also worth £3,000.

The other categories are: Political Biography of the Year, Polemic of the Year, Political History Book of the Year, International Affairs Book of the Year, Political Process Book of the Year, and the Lifetime Achievement Award in Political Literature.

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Gleick wins Science Books prize

 | By Katie Allen

James Gleick has won the 2012 Royal Society Prize for Science Books for his book The Information (Fourth Estate), which, according to the judges, “provide(s) a completely new framework for understanding the world around us”.

Gleick received the £10,000 prize from Nobel-winning president of the Royal Society Sir Paul Nurse.

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