Book Awards

In this week's roundup, we read the New Yorker, do some tightrope-walking, and then flip through a few hundred picture books:

"Old Media Monday" for kids' books. One of my favorite things on Omnivoracious is Tom's Old Media Monday posts, where he collects and blurbs the weekend's most interesting book reviews in print, from the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, LA Times, etc. Kid-lit blogger Big A little a performs an equally commendable public service for the kid-lit world, in her Weekend Review posts, which run down all the latest children's book reviews. This week's installment was exceptionally packed, covering special sections in the New York Times and Telegraph. If you're a picture book fan like me, you don't want to miss the Telegraph's survey of exceptional picture-book titles from (among others) Mo Willems, Anthony Browne, and Anne Cottringer and Alex T. Smith, creators of Eliot Jones, Midnight Superhero:

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers: The Movie. I somehow missed The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, which won the Caldecott in 2004, telling the strange but true story of how a young Frenchman walked between the World Trade Center towers on a tightrope in 1974. The story is now a movie, and the trailer just became available. (Found via 100 Scope Notes.)

Was Stuart Little the "product of a sick mind"? When this week's New Yorker showed up in the mail, there was only one thing more exciting than the Barack-and-Michelle-terrorist-fist-jab cover: it was Jill Lepore's exhaustive "The Lion and the Mouse" piece on the bumpy path of E.B. White's Stuart Little to publication and prominence. Anyone interested in books will love the rich history and philosophizing around this early literary struggle involving one of America's most celebrated essayists. You can get a quick rundown of the story on the New Yorker's book blog--and if you're looking for iPod fare, don't miss the audio feature with Lepore and Roger Angell (E. B. White’s stepson and an editor at the magazine).

"Global Reading for Children" radio segment. "How much do you want your kids to know about what's going on in the rest the world? And when is the right time to begin?" Those are the questions asked (and quite ably answered) by a segment on Wisconsin Public Radio's excellent "Here on Earth" program. You can still catch the archived show--a pretty short, worthwhile listen, with Megan Schliesman (librarian at the Cooperative Children's Book Center at UW-Madison) and Jean Westmoore (children's book reviewer for The Buffalo News). You can also just read their book recommendations on the show's archive page.

Browse picture books on Lookybook. I've been spending way too much time flipping through picture books on Lookybook. You won't necessarily find your favorite or the latest books there, but there are hundreds of fun-to-browse titles, in a pretty ingenious interface. To get an idea, click on the mini-Lookybook interface embedded below:

You can even find The Man Who Walked Between the Towers on Lookybook. --Paul

The UK's Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction, which is becoming one of my favorite prizes thanks to its eclectic and interesting choices, was awarded last night to Kate Summerscale for The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: Or, the Murder at Road Hill House. It slipped past my radar when it was published here (with a different subtitle, as The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective) in April by Walker & Co., but the judges' remarks make it sound fairly delicious:

The judges were unanimous: this is one of those great non-fiction books that uses the techniques of fiction to magnificent effect. On first reading, it is an absolute page-turner. Then, when you reread it, you realise how many levels it has, how much it tells you - about the founding of the police, the Victorian study of physiognomy, the inherent snobbery of the time that meant that the police wouldn't touch anyone from the upper classes, because they 'couldn't' have committed a crime.

PW loved it too ("a mesmerizing portrait") and there are some well-written 5-star customer reviews featured on our page too. The books on the shortlist it beat out were very strong--The Guardian's literary editor, Claire Armitstead, one of the judges, wrote about them all (without tipping her hand) just before the winner was announced. Here are the other contenders, which range all over the nonfiction map:

• Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher (out here in October)
• Crow Country by Mark Crocker (not published in the US yet)
• The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes
• The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French
• The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross

There's a lot of apples vs. oranges here, but that's the fun of it--I'd love to see a big US nonfiction prize that lumped history, biography, criticism, current events, etc., all together in one cage match like this. --Tom

In what turned out to be not so much a new award as a confirmation of an old one, the second Best of the Booker prize (given on the 40th anniversary of the award) went to the winner of the first one (given on the 25th anniversary): Salman Rushdie, for Midnight's Children. The voting was opened up to online civilians, 37% of whom went for the reigning champ. The Bookerites have yet to announce the voting totals for the runners up, which to me would be the only interesting news of the whole thing, but as a reminder, here were the other nominees, chosen by the Booker judges from previous Booker winners:

• The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell (1973)
• The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (1974)
• Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (1988)
• The Ghost Road by Pat Barker (1995)
• Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (1999)

Needless to say, per Richard Morgan's genre comments yesterday, Geoff Ryman's Air was not among the choices. By the way, Mr. Rushdie made his way to our cluttered halls a short time ago, and we hope to have our interview with him for you available shortly. --Tom

This past weekend, Locus Magazine announced the winners of its annual awards for SF and Fantasy. Winners included Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union for best SF novel and Shaun Tan's marvelous The Arrival for best art book.

Locus Online editor Mark Kelly has a detailed post about the awards weekend in Seattle, which includes this insight into an interview with William Gibson:

Gibson talked about how he reads so little genre SF in part because the packaging is so ugly; how he's native to SF, but not a nationalist; how JG Ballard has always been far more important to him than RA Heinlein; how he's liked recent books by Charles Stross, Junot Diaz, and Michael Chabon; and perhaps most interestingly, how his own novels start with tiny seeds and then grow, like an accumulation of rubber bands into an ever-enlarging ball with a single knot at the center, in order to 'explain' and justify the initial image.

I helped Heidi kick off YA Wednesdays a couple days ago, and in turn she'll be helping me with a weekly roundup of kid-lit news--from board books on up to middle readers. Please comment with suggestions or tips! Without further ado:

Hungry Planet for kids! Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio--the duo behind Hungry Planet--did a fascinating Q&A on the Freakonomics blog last month. I had heard about their book and never read it, but after reading the interview and seeing some of the photography, I went straight to the library to get it. One of the best parts of the Q&A (aside from an insane anecdote about slaughtering sheep in Mongolia) was when they said they'd be releasing a kids' version of the book--What the World Eats--later this summer! We'll surely talk about it here.

Stephen Colbert's three-sentence "review" of My Beautiful Mommy:

(At 3:56.) For those who can't watch clips, here's the quote: "One plastic surgeon has written a book, My Beautiful Mommy. This book is to help kids cope with their parents' cosmetic surgery. It is a lot more sensitive than the previous children's book on the subject, Heather's Mommy Has Two Expressions."

O'er the Pond, Part I: Kids' activity book bags British science award. How many book awards can there possibly be? If you follow book blogs at all, you can't click a link without running into yet another award list. Occasionally, though, a ceremony stands out--either because the books or the presenters seem exceptionally extraordinary, or both. That's the case for the Big Book of Science Things to Make and Do, honored at the Royal Society's Prizes for Science Books (hat tip to the always great Achockablog!). The winner came out of a formidable shortlist (including Serious Survival: How to Poo in the Arctic and Other Essential Tips for Explorers), and the awards were presented by a bona fide *lord* (Lord Rees, that is, president of the Society and "Astronomer Royal"). All that, and the ceremony had classy, custom cupcakes:

What's not to love? Got to wrangle an invite for next year somehow....

O'er the Pond, Part II: Free books for wee Brits. Another illuminating item courtesy of Achockablog: The British Booktime and Booked Up programs (for kids 4-5 and 11-12, respectively) promote recreational reading by giving kids high-quality books for free, over two million a year. It's a smart idea, and it's interesting to see what titles get included. (In particular, Heidi points out that poetry seems more mainstream for kids in Britain, with every younger child getting a free copy of The Puffin Book of Fantastic First Poems.)

Kids' books for tough topics. Librarian Kathy Englehart says that she's "frequently asked for books to help children understand the thornier issues in life." She lists some of her recommendations--on everything from same-sex marriages to seeing-eye dogs--for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

2009 Newbery and Caldecott predictions. Sure, sure, I can gripe about the ubiquity of award lists, but it's hard not to get sucked into speculation, especially when it comes to the heavyweights like the Newbery and Caldecott. Elizabeth Bird collects her own savvy picks at the half-year mark and invites commenters to share their favorites. Even if you don't care about the awards themselves, this is an excellent mid-year reading/gift-giving list for the kids in your life. (I'm glad to see that she liked Frankenstein Takes the Cake, Adam Rex's gloriously nutbar followup to Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. I fell in love with this book minutes after discovering it amidst the towering stacks in Lauren's office.)

Piaget's stages as buying guide. Sorry, this has nothing to do with books (or not much), other than that I found it on one of my favorite kid-lit blogs. Warren Buckleitner is a kids technology reviewer who just wrote a piece for the NYT about using Piaget's stages of cognitive development as a guide to what technology your kid can handle. This is in response to parents like this:

"My 4-year-old has been on the Web since he could sit up," said Samantha Morra, a mother of two from Montclair, N.J. "My 6-year-old has an iPod and wants a cellphone, although my husband and I aren’t sure who he’d call."

Our Silas is only 14 months old, and he already thinks iPhones and laptops are the most exciting thing in the world--based, no doubt, on how many hours a day he sees his parents staring at them. Buckleitner puts "watching funny videos on YouTube" at ages 6 to 11, but don't tell Silas: there's nothing he loves more these days than the Mexican Cat Dance:

--Paul

OK, so they've actually been around since 1990.  But 1,000 issues of any magazine is something to celebrate, and EW is doing it in style, with their trademark: lists, lists, and more lists. "The New Classics: The 1,000 Best Movies, TV Shows, Albums, Books & More of the Last 25 Years" is great fun, and ranks every form of media you can think of since 1983, with input from both editors and celebs. Where else could you find a magazine cover with Harry Potter, Maggie Simpson, Edward Scissorhands, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer?  And lists written by Jodie Foster, Neil Gaiman, and and Liz Phair? 

Here's a list from none other than Viggo Mortensen, who reveals his top 10 pieces of advice he's heard on movie sets.  There's something for everyone here, I think.  (True, I'm biased because I adore him. But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.)

1. ''One job at a time, and each job a success.''

2. ''Whatever you are feeling at this moment can be useful, no matter how far removed or even distracting it may seem from the scene you are playing. That is as close to 'real' as you will ever get.''

3. ''There is no way in hell that's going to work. That is the worst idea I have heard today — perhaps ever. Are you trying to single-handedly ruin my movie?''

4. ''Try it — what's the harm? It's only film and time.''

5. ''No hay dolor.'' (''There is no pain.'')

6. ''All you really need to play the moment is air and water.''

7. ''When in doubt, admit it.''

8. ''Don't tell me; show me.''

9. ''Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: They confuse reality with illusion.''

10. ''I love you.''

Happy weekend, everyone!

Tonight, in a very humid Manhattan, the bars and restaurants around the city are probably swimming with chefs, food writers, journalists, and well-connected foodies hitting the James Beard Award after-party circuit. Early yesterday I jotted down my personal picks and predictions for the book awards, and was much improved from my 1/14 record with the decidedly more eclectic IACP Awards. This time around I went 8/14 with bonus points for calling Cookbook of the Year, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's brilliant River Cottage Meat Book. We are not the type to brag, but this is the second year in a row (see The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook) where Amazon's Best Cookbook of the Year also took home James Beard's prestigious Cookbook of the Year.

On the chef front, Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich won the Outstanding Restaurateur Award for Babbo; Chicago's Grant Achatz (whose battle with tongue cancer was recently profiled in The New Yorker) won Outstanding Chef for Alinea (and whose gorgeous upcoming fall cookbook will surely be on the Beard's short-list next year); Danny Meyer's Gramercy Tavern took home Outstanding Restaurant; and foodie favorite David Chang won Best Chef: New York City.

Book winners featured below. See the complete list of nominees and winners across categories and catch up with official blog coverage.

--BTP

2008 Winners

Cookbook of the Year:
The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Cookbook Hall of Fame:
Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco by Paula Wolfert

Asian Cooking:
My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking by Niloufer Ichaporia King

Baking and   Dessert:
Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor by Peter Reinhart

Cooking from a Professional Point of View:
The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Cuisine by The French Culinary Institute with Judith Choate

Entertaining:
Dish Entertains by Trish Magwood

Americana:
A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson

General:
Cooking by James Peterson

Healthy Focus:
The EatingWell Diet by Jean Harvey-Berino with Joyce Hendley and the Editors of EatingWell

International:
The Country Cooking of France by Anne Willan

Reference:
A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America by Rowan Jacobsen

Single Subject:
The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Wine and Spirits:
Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar by David Wondrich

Writing on Food:
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Photography:
The Country Cooking of France by Anne Willan; Photographer: France Ruffenach

The Booker Prize potentates (in the persons in this go-round of judges Victoria Glendenning, Mariella Frostrup, and John Mullan) have chosen six finalists for the Best of the Booker prize (out of the 41 Booker winners eligible):

• Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (1999 winner)
• The Ghost Road by Pat Barker (1995)
• Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (1988)
• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)
• The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (1974)
• The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell (1973)

Notable snubs? Life of Pi? The English Patient? Possession? (Those are at least among the most popular winners in the US.) At this point, the selection of the winner is up to "you": that is, you can vote for the winner on the Man Booker website, although at this hour I can't see how to do it. Not that I could really do so myself in good conscience: it reveals me as either poorly read or Anglophobic* (or both!) that I've read exactly none of the well-known nominees. But nevertheless I'll root (and even vote) for The Siege of Krishnapur for the sole reason that it's published in the States by New York Review Books, whose exquisite taste has never ever steered me wrong.

And meanwhile, the required gripes. Yes, I enjoy book awards with some shamelessness, and I don't even mind the idea of a Best of the Booker. But what's embarrassing about this one is the prizegivers' lack of patience. Because they did this once before, for the Booker's 25th anniversary (the winner: Midnight's Children). So is it their 50th anniversary now? No, it's just the 40th. They just couldn't wait, could they? Ten years is a long time when you're itchy for PR in the downtime between fall prize seasons. But at this rate of accelerated impatience they'll want to do this again for the 45th anniversary, and before long they'll be running an updated contest every year: "Will Rushdie hold the title for one more year?" Even I might stop posting on the subject at that point. --Tom

*--I notice in retrospect that only two of the six are actually English by birth and upbringing--and some people even consider Farrell Irish--so maybe