Book Awards

Yesterday I quoted Janet Maslin comparing Hannah Tinti's new novel The Good Thief to the blockbuster Story of Edgar Sawtelle as two examples of "plain-spoken fiction full of traditional virtues," and today both books appear on the shortlist for the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction's third annual John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize (via GalleyCat):

• The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block
• Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
• Dervishes by Beth Helms
• Songs for the Butcher's Daughter by Peter Manseau
• Personal Days by Ed Park
• The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

It's a newish prize, but with a pretty good track record: last year's winner, Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, went on of course to win the Pulitzer too, and the inaugural prize went to Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which ended up, among other things, on the New York Times's Best 10 Books of the year list. (And I'm sorry to be annoying with the name-dropping, but the coincidence is too odd not to mention: Diaz and Pessl are the only two novelists I've had lunch with at a particular restaurant near our offices. So if any superstitious 2008 nominee will be in Seattle and would like to improve their chances before the winner is announced in early December, I'm extending an open invitation to dine at Tulio at 5th Ave. and Spring St.)

And meanwhile, what's with the arms race among New York libraries and their young writer awards? The New York Public Library gives out their Young Literary Lions prize in the spring; the onus apparently is now on the Morgan Library and Schomburg Center to follow with well-funded awards for literary beginners. One almost suspects that the libraries, like operas and symphonies, have been told by their boards of directors to attract a new generation of patrons; therefore, prizes for their peers. You might think libraries would look instead to recognizing longer-lived value, and it's reassuring to see that the Merc's other two awards, both excellent ideas, do just that: the Maxwell E. Perkins Award, a lifetime achievement prize for "an editor, publisher, or agent who over the course of his or her career has discovered, nurtured and championed writers of fiction in the United States" (which recalls the recent discussion here of "legendary" editors), and the Clifton Fadiman Medal, for "a work of fiction, by a living American author, which deserves rediscovery and a wider readership" and which was published more than 10 years before. I think of this one as the New York Review Books award, since it resurrects exactly the same sort of lost classic that my favorite publishing series does, so it's fitting that the first Fadiman winner, in 2000, is currently published by NYRB (and was indeed written by one of the founders of the New York Review): Elizabeth Hardwick's Sleepless Nights. I'll also note that the second winner, The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, is one of my own most beloved rediscoveries--I only came to it a few years ago, after reading Hazzard's The Great Fire, and it immediately became one of my all-time favorite books. --Tom

In this edition of YA Wednesday, Heidi is taking a break while I root around for noteworthy YA news (but watch for her this weekend, when she compiles the End-o'-the-Week Kid-Lit Roundup).

More reviews by kids. This was fun to see after writing about Storytubes last week. The Chicago Tribune just published a whole passel of reviews by kids between 5 and 15, talking about their favorite books as part of the Trib's "Read & Write" series. From a Kid-Lit vs. YA perspective, it's especially fun to see where the kids break and self-select into YA and beyond--from the likes of Tales of Animal Heroes moving onto 24 Girls in 7 Days and then Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Plus, you get to hear about some books you might never have noticed, like The Hardy Boyz: Exist 2 Inspire. (Found via Big A little a.)

"Young Adult" classification possibly good; also, possibly bad. Science-fiction site io9 has a couple of essays up on YA SF, pro and con. ("Young Adult Books Will Save Science Fiction" and "Stop Writing Young Adult Science Fiction", respectively.) Kid-lit cognoscente Colleen Mondor calls them "two of the silliest pieces I have read on YA literature in ages." Take that! You've got to love her advice: "Here's an idea - why doesn't everyone just grow up and stop talking about this and let teens read what they want; whether a publisher designates it YA or not. (And really, that is what they are quite happily doing anyway.)"

Violence! Swears! Kids' book awards!. Elsewhere in the world of controversy, we found out from achockablog that Matt Ottley's Requiem for a Beast was named the Children's Book Council of Australia's "Picture Book of the Year"--despite having swears and "illustrations of a bloody axe," among other things. By many accounts, the book--explicitly intended for "adults and young adults"--is dark, complex, and also fairly awesome. But one former Book Council president isn't happy: "I really have a problem with this book. It shouldn't be on the shortlist, let alone win."

Some obligatory Twilight. I now believe Heidi that when you're reading about YA on the Web, you can't help but read about the Twilight Saga, whether it's funny Robert Pattinson interviews or commentary in the Washington Post from the author of Why Gender Matters. My favorite (sorry, I'm sure I'm getting to this late) was the cute Twilight trailer spoof:

Advice from college guys for high school guys. Guys Lit Wire is a great site for teen guys--or anyone who recommends books to teen guys--to find new ideas on what to read. (You can even find ideas from me there from time to time.) Kelly Herold's "Higher Learning" interviews are especially good, in which "college guys talk about what they're reading, what they read in high school, and what books are important to them now." She just posted her third, with Ben, a second-year student at Grinnell College, who cut his teeth on the likes of Lois Lowry's The Giver and Jack London's Martin Eden.

Show your librarian some love! Okay, this isn't specific to YA, but everyone should know that nominations just opened last Friday for the "I Love My Librarian!" awards....

--Paul

As reported by Cheryl Morgan and by OF Blog of the Fallen, the Hugo Award winners have been announced, with Michael Chabon winning best novel for The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Check out Morgan for the running commentary during the ceremony and OF Blog of the Fallen for the complete list of winners. Congratulations to all.

Locus has posted the list of World Fantasy Award finalists. There are many fine selections here--including much deserved praise for John Klima's efforts--but I can't help but note a lack of daring on the part of the judges. This continues a trend, in my opinion, within core genre, toward the more conservative. Here, for example, is the list of best novels:

Fangland, John Marks (Penguin)
The Gospel of the Knife, Will Shetterly (Tor)
The Servants, Michael Marshall Smith (Earthling Publications)
Territory, Emma Bull (Tor)
Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay (Viking Canada; Roc)

Territory is one of my favorites from last year, and I'm happy to see it on the list. I also think the others are solid, solid novels. But I'd put Michael Cisco's The Traitor up against any one of them. Or Ekaterina Sedia's A Secret History of Moscow. Or Hal Duncan's Ink. Or, perhaps most criminally, Dan Simmons' The Terror, a novel that in scope and execution dwarfs everything just mentioned. David Anthony Durham's Acacia is missing from the list. Nor does the intricate second volume of Catherynne M. Valente's Orphan's Tales, In the Cities of Spice and Coin, get any love. Great novels by Daniel Abraham, Nalo Hopkinson, John Crowley, and Paul Park also apparently didn't strike the judges the right way. Or Patrick Rothfuss. Just for example.

Granted, the final ballot includes voter choices as well, but the judges have the ability to add a sixth or even seventh choice to a category in cases where they don't agree with those voted-in choices. In the major categories, however, there are only five finalists this year.

Another striking omission is the lack of any content from online sources. With online magazines now providing some of the strongest and most original fiction, this seems somewhat reactionary. Or an oversight.

It's hard to complain when the job of judging is so thankless, but I do find some of these choices puzzling. The great thing, though, is you get to make your own lists. If there's something that I've mentioned or is on the ballot and you haven't read it, pick it up. Let us know what you think of it. Be your own judge.

The fall awards season kicked off today with the announcement of the longlist for the Booker Prize, 13 books long to be exact. As usual it's a mix of books that have already come out in the US, ones that are out in the UK but not the US, and ones that haven't come out anywhere yet:

• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold (out here and in the UK in November)
• The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
• From A to X by John Berger
• The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
• Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
• The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant (available in Canada and the UK)
• A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
• The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher (UK edition; out in the US in February)
• Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
• The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
• Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

A couple of big names (Rushdie, fresh off defending his Best of the Bookers crown, as well as former prize-hating Booker winner John Berger), but on a list this long, the immediate story is who was left off and in this case that includes big and biggish names like Peter Carey, Tim Winton, James Kelman, and Zoe Heller. There's been a very active discussion board on the Booker site, with a lot of debate about possible nominees--often by people who have actually read the books!--but when they tallied their longlist predictions, they didn't fare so well, getting only Rushdie, Barry, Hanif, and Adiga right. Among those they were particularly excited about that didn't make it were Winton's Breath, Alexis Wright's Carpentaria, Andrew Crumey's Sputnik Caledonia, and Damon Galgut's The Impostor.

What will move on to the shortlist (announced September 9)? Netherland is probably the best-reviewed book of the year so far in the US (where it is set), but I don't think it's been quite as rapturously received in the UK, while my sense is that Rushdie's book was better reviewed in the UK (at least by John Sutherland, who doesn't have to eat his copy yet) than here. We've made both Enchantress of Florence and A Case of Exploding Mangoes Best of the Month picks so far this year. And most of the talk about the longlist will likely center on Child 44, a highly promoted and well-reviewed debut that is an unabashed thriller (see Richard K. Morgan on Omni earlier this month on genre fiction and the Booker). The one I'm most intrigued by is Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole, which has gotten comparisons to Dickens, Irving, David Foster Wallace, Marisha Pessl, and last year's finalist Nicola Barker for being both enormous and hilarious. --Tom

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