Costa Book Awards Shortlist

The Costa Book Awards recognise the most enjoyable books of the year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. They are unique in having five categories, the winner in each category winning £5,000.

The winner of the overall Costa Book of the Year, which will be announced Tuesday 24th January 2012, and will get an additional £30,000. The Costa Book of the Year Award is the only prize in which children’s books compete with adult books in this way.

Here are this year’s shortlists :

Novel Award

• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (winner of the Man Booker Prize this year)
• A Summer of Drowning by John Burnside
• Pure by Andrew Miller
• My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young

Read about each book in this category here.

First Novel Award

• City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
• The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness
• Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson
• Pao by Kerry Young

Read about each book in this category here.

Biography Award

• Thin Paths: Journeys In and Around an Italian Mountain Village by Julia Blackburn
• Henry’s Demons: Living with Schizophrenia – A Father and Son’s Story by Patrick and Henry Cockburn
• Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis
• Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin 

Read about each book in this category here.

Poetry Award

• The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy
• Night by David Harsent
• Fiere by Jackie Kay
• November by Sean O’Brien

Read about each book in this category here.

Children’s Book Award

• Flip by Martyn Bedford
• The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce
• Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans
• Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Read about each book in this category here.

Category winners will be announced on Wednesday 4th January 2012

 

November Meeting

Attendees : Margaret, Heidi, Beverley, Ros, Vic, Katie, Gabrielle, Mary, Catherine, Heather

Apologies : David, Sharon

Business :

1. Sasha has resigned from Book Thieves. She thanks us for having her for the little while she was a member.
2. Sasha’s place will be offered to Lynette, Gabrielle’s niece.
3. Mary is to find out if Rosemary intends to remain in Book Thieves or not.
4. Mary is to investigate options for a trip to the Hawkesbury in January.
5. Heidi is to set up a Doodle date  chooser to find out which weekend in January would suit most people for the excursion.

Discussion : Margaret led the group in what was an unusually unanimously disappointing read. With such a seemingly charming, erudite subject, expectations were high but most found Stephen Fry long-winded, self-indulgent and dismissive of the most interesting bits (his bi-polar disorder for instance) and we ended up with not a lot more than a list of what projects (film, stage or TV) he’d done with whom. Those who had read it recommend his first biography, Moab is my Washpot instead. The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry scored 2.5.

Next Meeting : Ransom by David Malouf at David’s.

Irish award might help you choose a good read for 2012

With a prize of €100,000, the International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award is the world’s most valuable annual literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English. The Award is a result of a partnership between Dublin City Council and IMPAC, a company which operates in over 50 countries and is administered by Dublin City Public Libraries.

The unique thing about this award is that the nominations are made by libraries in capital and major cities all over the world, each participating library being able to make 3 nominations on the basis of ‘high literary merit’ as determined by the nominating library.

Our own State Library of NSW is one of the participants.

The longlist was announced yesterday and if you click here you can read the full long list and also read a plot summary of each one. A judging panel then comes to a shortlist of 10 titles (due in April 2012) before the winner is announced in June 2012.

This year the 147 eligible nominated novels have come from 122 cities and 45 countries worldwide. Thirty-four of the nomintated titles have been translated into English from 18 different languages. Thirty-one of the nominated titles are first novels.

Australian nominees are Roger McDonald for When Colts Ran, Kim Scott for That Deadman Dance and Chris Womersley for Bereft.