Guardian First Book Award Nominees Announced

Earlier this week, The Guardian announced the shortlist for its 2012 First Book Award. There are three fiction titles and two non-fiction; as well, 3 American authors made the list: Kevin Powers for The Yellow Birds, Katherine Boo for Behind The Beautiful Forevers and Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding, a personal favourite of mine (it's in my top ten!). I am rooting for Harbach, obviously, but a book about baseball and Moby-Dick may not have the same impact in the British Isles. We shall see.

Rounding out the list are Scottish writer Kerry Hudson with Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, and Lindsey Hilsum's "non-fiction account of the Libyan revolution," Sandstorm.

"It's a very strong list this year," said Allardice, who is joined on the judging panel by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Kate Summerscale, William Dalrymple and Jeanette Winterson, and Guardian deputy editor, Katharine Viner. "We've got a fictional account of the war in Iraq, and a fictional account of growing up in poverty in the UK, alongside non-fictional accounts of growing up in a Mumbai slum, and the conflict in Libya. It's very interesting to see the different ways writers choose to approach their material. The Mumbai book reads almost like a novel, Boo is so deeply embedded in her environment, while Kevin Powers has chosen to fictionalise his obviously first-hand and deeply personal experience of serving in Iraq. It's a very raw book in subject matter and in some places in style, but the powerful authenticity of such a harrowing experience really comes across."

The winner will be announced on November 29th.

Four Non-Fiction Awards

With the influx of shortlists this fall, I usually focus on the fiction awards since that is what I tend to read. However, there are several non-fiction awards that are worth mentioning.

I don’t have anything against non-fiction, and I like really good non-fiction, but I prefer fiction in most cases. Simply, I have an infinite list of books to read, and I will choose fiction over non-fiction 99% of the time. However, every once in a while a non-fiction title will catch my eye and I will pick it up (usually reading it alongside a novel I am into at the time). I usually read books about music, literature or sports - Jonathan Lethem’s Fear of Music, The Library at Night by Manguel and Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running are a few examples. I am intrigued by biographies of writers. I like reading about music, and fans of music. Nick Hornby and Lethem are great examples of this. I also like books about baseball - Moneyball was great, so was The Boys of Summer.

But these are just my tastes. Apparently, non-fiction has experienced a redefinition in the last decade, moving from factual reporting to creative non-fiction. Not “creative” like James Frey, but creative as in imaginative prose. Writers are adding narrative to works of non-fiction in a way that hasn’t really been done before. The stories will continue to be interesting, but writers themselves are generating a following, regardless of what they write about - Michael Lewis is one such writer, or Malcolm Gladwell, or Bill Bryson.

The increase in non-fiction writing awards reflects this shift. The Governor General’s Literary Awards have always celebrated non-fiction, but new awards, such as The Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction, or the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, have brought more attention and prestige to non-fiction writers.

If you are a fiction reader and want to expand your reading list, the prize shortlists are good places to start. Not only will the subjects be captivating, the writing will be at a high level. There’s no reason to hang on to the stereotype of dry non-fiction writing.

The Hilary Weston Prize announced its shortlist on September 25th. Like the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the prize celebrates Canadian non-fiction over the last year. The GGs were announced last week, and the Charles Taylor Prize is handed out in the Spring.

Another non-fiction award shortlist was announced this past week. The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction was created in 1997 and is one of Britain’s richest literary awards. It is open to books published in the UK, but not necessarily by UK authors, which allows writers in English from other countries to be considered for the prize. This year’s shortlist features Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis, a Canadian author. This book is also nominated for the GG award, and was a finalist for the Charles Taylor Prize in 2012. By all accounts, this trifecta is remarkable. Davis’s book details George Mallory’s attempt at Mount Everest following the Great War. Perhaps this shall be added to my to be read list this year - it is certainly getting enough acclaim to warrant a glance.

Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Nominees

Last week, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize shortlist was announced. This is a lucrative prize, offering $25,000 to the winner. To this year's shortlisted nominees, it will mean that much more, as 4 of the 5 nominees are from independent presses. Here is the list:



Tim Bowling | The Tinsmith
Published by Brindle & Glass Publishing



Tamas Dobozy | Siege 13
Published by Thomas Allen Publishers



Rawi Hage | Carnival
Published by House of Anansi Press



Alix Ohlin | Inside
Published by House of Anansi Press



Linda Spalding | The Purchase
Published by McClelland & Stewart

(from Writers' Trust of Canada)

Alix Ohlin's Inside is longlisted for the Giller. Rawi Hage is a previous winner of the IMPAC Dublin Award for his novel De Niro's Game - interestingly, his previous two novels, De Niro's Game and Cockroach, were also shortlisted for the Writer's Trust Prize.

This year's jury consists of Esi Edugyan, Lynn Coady and Drew Hayden Taylor. The award will be announced on November 7th.

Read more about the shortlist at Quill & Quire.

Orange Prize for Fiction Roundup

The Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced on April 17th. Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues, which won the Giller, and Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder are nominated, and I feel strongly that these two are favourites for the Prize. The other nominees are Anne Enright for The Forgotten Waltz, Cynthia Ozick for Foreign Bodies, Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles and Georgina Harding for Painter of Silence.

It is a talented field: Patchett has already won the award, in 2002 for Bel Canto, Enright is a Booker winner (2007’s The Gathering), Half-Blood Blues has been nominated for myriad prizes this year, and Ozick is an American octogenarian with many accolades to her name. The dark horse pick is The Song of Achilles. Miller’s debut novel is a sweeping retelling of The Iliad, repositioning Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. Finally, Harding is an unknown to me, since her book is not available here yet, and I’ve not heard of her previously. It could be great! I have no idea.

If I had to guess, I would say State of Wonder is the likely winner, though I would not be surprised if it went to Edugyan, Enright, or Ozick. 

The winner will be announced on May 30th, 2012. 

GGs Announced!

The finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Awards (more affectionately known as the GGs) were announced yesterday with the winners being announced November 18th. Some familiar faces are on the list, including Rawi Hage for Cockroach which is also a finalist for the Giller. I won't list everything here since there are numerous categories, but anyone interested can take a peak on the Canada Council website at http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla/.

More Book Award Lists

The Giller Prize shortlist was released this week:

Cockroach - Rawi Hage
Through Black Spruce - Joseph Boyden
Barnacle Love - Anthony De Sa
Good to a Fault - Marina Endicott
The Boys In The Trees - Mary Swan

The Giller Prize celebrates English-language Canadian authors and has a $50,000 payday. The jury this year consists of Margaret Atwood, Bob Rae and author Colm Toibin. How Bob Rae finds time to judge a book contest is beyond me. Atwood says that this year's list put a "spotlight" on people "who might never have been there" - doesn't that seem a little like they shouldn't be there? Or is she saying that small publishers and new authors don't get the type of publicity that others do? (Perhaps that is why Miriam Toews wasn't nominated). A site I discovered today, Bookninja, has a different take: "The coverage around the Giller announcement... seems to be revolving around the “newness” of the names on the list. The Post even hints that the judges are more famous than the nominees. The Giller’s been criticized in the past for being an old boys and girls club, so I guess this is some antidote. I’m sure we’ll get around to asking why all the spots went to large presses." Coincidence? I think not. (Okay, now I admit to trying to stir the pot when there's no real controversy. I guess I am a little upset that Toews didn't get nominated. Then again, I haven't read that book, nor any other on the Giller shortlist. They could all very well be the best Canadian novels of this year.) The Giller winner will be named on November 11th.

Man Booker Prize Announces Shortlist

The Man Booker Prize Shortlist was announced today, cutting the field from 13 to 6. The winner will be announced on October 14th. Though some of these books are not yet released and I've only heard of one of the authors, the Booker prize is nonetheless a prestigious award that launches careers. The 2008 shortlist is as follows:

Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger (Atlantic)
Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture (Faber and Faber)
Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies (John Murray)
Linda Grant - The Clothes on Their Backs (Virago)
Philip Hensher - The Northern Clemency (Fourth Estate)
Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole (Hamish Hamilton)

Perhaps we have a candidate for a future DTABC pick? For the complete long list and other Man Booker facts, see the website here.