Tag Archives: Book Awards

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Longlist 2015

It’s been an interesting week for book award longlists. First, there was the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist announced on Tuesday followed by the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist announced late on Wednesday. The fifteen novels are:Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

  • The Ravens by Tomas Bannerhed translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death
  • The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
  • Bloodlines by Marcello Fois translated from the Italian by Silvester Mazzarella
  • In the Beginning Was the Sea by Tomás González translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne
  • The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
  • F by Daniel Kehlmann translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway
  • Boyhood Island by Karl Ove Knausgaard translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett
  • By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel translated from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar
  • The Investigation by Jung-Myung Lee translated from the Korean by Chi-Young Kim
  • While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent
  • Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
  • The Giraffe’s Neck by Judith Schalansky translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside
  • Tiger Milk by Stefanie de Velasco translated from the German by Tim Mohr
  • Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
  • The Last Lover by Can Xue translated from the Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen

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The Man Booker Prize Shortlist Readings 2014

Booker shortlist 2014

Last year, I went to the Man Booker Prize shortlist readings event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre. This year, I was lucky enough to win tickets to the same event which was held at the Royal Festival Hall on Monday and hosted by Kirsty Wark.

This year’s shortlisted novels are:

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

J by Howard Jacobson

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

How to be Both by Ali Smith

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The Man Booker Prize Longlist 2014

This year’s Man Booker Prize longlist was announced today. The thirteen titles are:

Joshua Ferris – To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Richard Flanagan – The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Karen Joy Fowler – We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Siri Hustvedt – The Blazing World
Howard Jacobson – J
Paul Kingsnorth – The Wake
David Mitchell – The Bone Clocks
Neel Mukherjee – The Lives of Others
David Nicholls – Us
Joseph O’Neill – The Dog
Richard Powers – Orfeo
Ali Smith – How To Be Both
Niall Williams – History of the Rain

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The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2014

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2014

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is one of the most interesting literary prizes but is also, unfortunately, one of the more overlooked. It probably hasn’t helped that the announcement of both the longlist and shortlist  has coincided with the announcement of the longlist and shortlist of the higher profile Women’s Prize for Fiction. The jury had a record number of entries to read before choosing this year’s shortlist which was revealed yesterday:

The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim (translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright)

A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard (translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett)

A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli (translated from the French by Sam Taylor)

The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke (translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch)

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa (translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder)

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami (translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell)
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The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2014

The longlist for this year’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction was announced today.  The twenty titles are:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Americanah
Margaret Atwood – MaddAddam
Suzanne Berne –  The Dogs of Littlefield
Fatima Bhutto – The Shadow of the Crescent Moon
Claire Cameron –  The Bear
Lea Carpenter – Eleven Days
M.J. Carter – The Strangler Vine
Eleanor Catton – The Luminaries
Deborah Kay Davies – Reasons She Goes to the Woods
Elizabeth Gilbert – The Signature of All Things
Hannah Kent – Burial Rites
Rachel Kushner – The Flamethrowers
Jhumpa Lahiri – The Lowland
Audrey Magee – The Undertaking
Eimear McBride – A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing
Charlotte Mendelson – Almost English
Anna Quindlen – Still Life with Bread Crumbs
Elizabeth Strout – The Burgess Boys
Donna Tartt – The Goldfinch
Evie Wyld – All The Birds, Singing

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The Folio Prize

Folio Prize 2014

The shortlist for the first Folio Prize was announced today.  The eight nominated books are:

Red Doc by Anne Carson
Schroder by Amity Gaige
Last Friends by Jane Gardam
Benediction by Kent Haruf
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
Tenth of December by George Saunders

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Waterstones Book of the Year 2013

The Waterstones Book of the Year award shortlist was announced today.  The nominated books are:

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Levels of Life by Julian Barnes

The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil by Stephen Collins

Maps by Aleksandra Mizielińska and Daniel Mizieliński

Love, Nina: Despatches of Family Life by Nina Stibbe

Stoner by John L. Williams Continue reading

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Eleanor Catton wins the Man Booker Prize

It has just been announced that Eleanor Catton has won this year’s Man Booker Prize for her novel ‘The Luminaries’.  Not only is she the youngest ever winner of the prestigious prize at the age of just 28, the book is also the longest ever to win at 832 pages.  Her productivity levels are simply incredible – I feel exhausted just thinking about it. Continue reading

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The Man Booker Prize Shortlist Readings

Last night, I went to the Southbank Centre to listen to the shortlisted authors for this year’s Man Booker Prize give readings from their nominated novels.  I really enjoyed a similar event for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in June so I bought a ticket for this one as soon as possible.

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Freshly Pressed…. Again!

So apparently it’s possible to be Freshly Pressed twice… Just over a year after my post about eBooks was Freshly Pressed, my post about the forthcoming changes to the Man Booker Prize criteria received the honour yesterday.

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The Man Booker Prize: US authors to be considered?

The Man Booker Prize is certainly no stranger to controversy. However, reports that American writers will be eligible from next year onwards have managed to provoke even more debate than normal with many arguing that the Prize will lose its “distinctiveness”.  There has been no official comment from the Booker committee yet but changes are set to be announced later this week. Continue reading

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Am I A Book Snob?

This week, I found a very interesting post by Amanda Nelson on an awesome website called Book Riot which lists the sort of things that a stereotypical book snob might say and then a “translation” for what they really mean. It’s a very humorous and tongue-in-cheek piece which isn’t meant to be taken very seriously but it got me thinking about book snobbishness and which statements are the sort of things that I might say…

E-reading isn’t REAL reading. = I need my personal preferences about my hobby to be validated as the only right and moral way do to a thing.

Not guilty.  I read printed books and I read eBooks.  As I have said elsewhere, e-readers are great for travel but I still read a lot of printed books. Continue reading

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The Man Booker Prize Longlist 2013

The longlist for the Man Booker Prize 2013 was announced today.  151 books were submitted for consideration and the final 13 are:

Five Star Billionaire: Tash Aw
We Need New Names: NoViolet Bulawayo
The Luminaries: Eleanor Catton
Harvest: Jim Crace
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman: Eve Harris
The Kills: Richard House
The Lowland: Jhumpa Lahiri
Unexploded: Alison MacLeod
TransAtlantic: Colum McCann
Almost English: Charlotte Mendelson
A Tale for the Time Being: Ruth Ozeki
The Spinning Heart: Donal Ryan
The Testament of Mary: Colm Tóibín Continue reading

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The Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist

The shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013 was announced today at the London Book Fair.  The six nominees are…

   Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

    May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes

    Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver

    Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

   Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

   NW by Zadie Smith

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The Folio Prize: Do We Need Another Literary Award?

The Folio PrizeAnother day sees another literary award announced…this time, it’s the launch of the Folio Prize, a new £40,000 literary award sponsored by the Folio Society for the best work of fiction published in the English language.  This particular prize was created after several literary bigwigs complained about the supposed dumbing down of the Booker Prize in 2011, a year when books were chosen for their ‘readability’.  Heaven forbid that somebody who wasn’t on the judging panel might actually understand or even enjoy something on the shortlist…
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Are Book Awards A Waste Of Time?

Source: The Guardian

Whether it’s the Bad Sex award given to the author of the most cringe-worthy sex scene in literature each year or coveted literary prizes such as the Booker and the Pulitzer, book awards attract a lot of attention.  They also attract a considerable amount of debate particularly concerning the worthiness of winners.  So do we actually need them and what do they really achieve?

Regular followers of this blog will know that I read quite a lot of books which are nominated for the Booker Prize and other similar literary awards.  I don’t read these books purely because they are on the shortlist and I certainly wouldn’t rush out and buy the whole lot straight after the announcement.  Like most people, I still choose books almost entirely according to personal recommendations and general browsing rather than the number of prestigious awards they have won.  However, I am always intrigued by what it is about them that got them recognised and nominated in the first place so I do try and hunt down the ones I think I might enjoy and have heard generally good things about.   Continue reading

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