The Slap

Anyone else looking forward to this starting next week?

I read The Slap a while back with my other book group and then Dead Europe a few months ago. Not many likeable characters in Tsiolkas’ books but he’s a very, very compelling writer and I highly recommend him.

Here are two reviews, one with video, the second with a ‘family tree’ for easier following of the story.

1. The Australian  (NB: Stephen Romei acknowledges in his blog, A Pair of Ragged Claws , that he’s got Anthony and Jonathan LaPaglia mixed up in the video)
2. Fancy Goods Bookseller & Publisher blog

 Happy viewing.

HC

Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Finalists

The finalists for this year’s Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) have been announced.

There are lots of book industry categories including Chain Bookseller of the Year, Independent Bookseller of the Year, Small Publisher of the Year and so on (see all the category finalists by clicking here) but as readers I’ll cut to what I think interests us most :

Illustrated Book of the Year 2011
A Food Lover’s Pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela by Dee Nolan
Bill’s Basics by Bill Granger
Our Family Table by Julie Goodwin
Quay by Peter Gilmore
Real Food Companion by Matthew Evans
Yiwarra Kuju: the Canning Stock Route by the National Museum of Australia
(seems being a cook book gives you a leg up in this category)

Biography of the Year 2011
Ben Cousins – My Life by Ben Cousins
How to Make Gravy by Paul Kelly
Lazarus Rising by John Howard
The Family Law by Benjamin Law
The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do

General Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2011
Here on Earth by Tim Flannery
Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd by David Marr
Street Fight in Naples by Peter Robb
The Changi Brownlow by Roland Perry
True Spirit by Jessica Watson

 

Book of the Year for Younger Children (0 to 8 years) 2011
All Through the Year by Jane Godwin, illus by Anna Walker
Feathers for Phoebe by Rod Clement
Maudie and Bear by Jan Omerod, illus by Freya Blackwood
Mirror by Jeannie Baker
Noni the Pony by Alison Lester
The Legend of the Golden Snailby Graeme Base

 

Book of the Year for Older Children (8 to 14 years) 2011
Conspiracy 365 by Gabrielle Lord
Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
Shakespeare’s Hamlet illus by Nicki Greenberg
Museum of Thieves: The Keepers Book 1 by Lian Tanner
Nowby Morris Gleitzman

Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2011
Bereft by Chris Womersley
How it Feels by Brendan Cowell
Rocks in the Belly by Jon Bauer
That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter

General Fiction Book of the Year 2011
After America by John Birmingham
At Home with the Templetons by Monica McInerney
Campaign Ruby by Jessica Rudd
I Came to Say Goodbye by Caroline Overington
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

 

Newcomer of the Year (debut writer) 2011

Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania’s Forests by Anna Krien
Poh’s Kitchen by Poh Ling Yeow
The Bark Cutters by Nicole Alexander
The Family Law by Benjamin Law
The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do

 

Book of the Year 2011

Bereft by Chris Womersley

How to Make Gravy by Paul Kelly
I Came to Say Goodbye by Caroline Overington
Lazarus Rising by John Howard
The Family Law by Benjamin Law
The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do

 

The winners of the awards will be announced at the Australian Book Industry Awards presentation dinner in Melbourne on Monday 25 July during the 2011 ABA Conference.

Miles Franklin Literary Award

That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott was announced as the 2011 winner of the Miles Franklin literary award last night. The award is worth $50,000 in prize money.

That Deadman Dance is a historical novel telling the story of early contact between British colonisers, American whalers and the indigenous Noongar people on the south coast of Western Australia.

The judges described the book as historical and magical as it drifts between the settler world and the Aboriginal world.

“That Deadman Dance is alive in the spaces between these two worlds as they collide and collaborate,” they said.  “We see and feel the hardship, tragedies and aspirations of the settlement, and at the same time we are transported into the mystical and spiritual life worlds of Wabalanginy and his people.”

In 2000 Kim Scott was the first Aboriginal writer to win the Miles Franklin with his book Benang : from the heart. That year he tied with writer Thea Astley with her novel Drylands.

There were just three novels on the shortlist this year. Scott’s rivals were Chris Womersley with Bereft and When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald which we are due to read in September.

2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Shortlists

Federal Arts Minister, Simon Crean, has announced the 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlists.

Mr Crean said being shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards is a great achievement for authors that will bring further public recognition of their writing. The judging panels were enormously impressed by the breadth of talent displayed in this year’s entries, and applauded the inventiveness, artistry and flair for which Australian creators and publishers are justly renowned.

So here are the shortlists :

Non-fiction
• Sydney by Delia Falconer
• How To Make Gravy by Paul Kelly
• The Party by Richard McGregor
• The Hard Light of Day by Rod Moss
• Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory by Patrick Wilcken

Fiction
• Traitor by Stephen Daisley
• Notorious by Roberta Lowing
• When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald
• Glissando by David Musgrave
• That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott

Young Adult Fiction
• Good Oil by Laura Buzo
• Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
• The Three Loves of Persimmon by Cassandra Gold
• About a Girl by Joanne Horniman
• The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta

Children’s Fiction
• Why I Love Australia by Bronwyn Bancroft
• Flyaway by Lucy Christopher
• Now by Morris Gleitzman
• April Underhill, Tooth Fairy by Bob Graham
• Shake a Leg by Boori Monty Pryor and Jan Ormerod

More information about the shortlists is available from the Australian Government’s Arts and Culture web pages.

The winners will be announced in early July.

Miles Franklin Shortlist

The 2011 Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist has been announced this morning and consists of :

Bereft by Chris Womersley

That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott

When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald

The judging panel reflected on Miles Franklin’s desire for a unique character in Australian literature. “These shortlisted books have a distinctive, indelible Australian voice. It’s a voice that has nothing to do with reflex nationalism, or jingoism – rather the reverse. The shortlisted books this year are like barometers of the state of our culture: they take the readings, and give them back to us in fiction of extraordinary accomplishment. They force us to look again at ourselves, and to think – hard.”

Look back on the 2011 longlist here.

Miles Franklin Literary Award Longlist

The 2011 longlist for the Miles Franklin Literary Award was announced yesterday.

‘The Miles Franklin Literary Award celebrates Australian character and creativity and nurtures the continuing life of literature about Australia. It is awarded for the novel of the year which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases.

Since it was first awarded in 1957 to Patrick White for his novel Voss, the award has encouraged authors and delivered an immense contribution to the richness of Australian cultural life’ (The Trust Company).

The Miles Franklin Literary Award is Australia’s most prestigious literary prize and comes with $50,000 prize money.

The 2011 Miles Franklin Literary Award Longlist, chosen from the 55 books that were submitted for this year’s award.

• Rocks in the Belly by Jon Bauer
• The Good Daughter by Honey Brown
• The Mary Smokes Boys by Patrick Holland
• The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta
• When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald
• Time’s Long Ruin by Stephen Orr
• That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
• The Legacy Kirsten Tranter
• Bereft by Chris Womersley

To read more about the longlist novels and their authors, click on this link.

The Shortlist is due to be announced on 19 April 2011

2010 Miles Franklin Literary Award Winner

Congratulations go today to crime writer Peter Temple who has been awarded the 2010 Miles Franklin Literary Award, worth $42,000, for his latest book, Truth.

Recognised as Australia’s most prestigious prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award which was established in 1957, is given to the novel of the highest literary merit that presents Australian life. Truth, also makes history as the first work of genre fiction to win the award.

“It unusual for a crime writer to receive such a prestigious award, so cop it sweet,” Temple told AAP upon receiving the award. He joked that Australia’s first Nobel laureate, Patrick White, would find it “unthinkable” that a crime writer had won the prize.

Temple says he feels “enormously elated” by his win. “One only has to look at the people who have won the Miles Franklin,” he added. “In order to join that company, you have to believe that you’ve joined something quite special.”

“I mean in any other terms it really would be like winning the Nobel Prize.”

Truth is the sequel to The Broken Shore, also highly regarded, and follows Inspector Stephen Villani, the head of the Victoria Police Homicide Squad who we met briefly in The Broken Shore. It is set during the aftermath of the devastating Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009 when 173 people died and 414 were injured.

2010 Miles Franklin longlist

Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Winners

On April 12th the winners of the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize were announced.

Rana Dasgupta won the Best Book prize for Solo and Glenda Guest won the Best First Book prize for Siddon Rock. The Best First Book winner claims £5,000 while the writer of the Best Book wins £10,000.

According to the Commonwealth Foundation judges, Solo was chosen as Best Book for its innovation, ambition, courage and effortlessly elegant prose. “A remarkable novel of two halves, this is a book that takes risks and examines the places where grim reality and fantastical daydreams merge, diverge, and feed off each other. Solo, the judges concluded, is a tour de force, breathtaking in its boldness and narrative panache.”

Rana Dasgupta was born in the UK butnow lives in New Delhi. His first book, Tokyo Cancelled, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize previously.

The judges praised Siddon Rock and awarded it the Best First Book prize for its rich cast of odd characters and blending of the everyday with fantasy. Behind every door in town lurk secret desires and wild imaginings. The novel, they concluded, deftly delves into the hauntings and disjunctions of settler Australia, and in its fable-like quality captures the laconic mannerisms of the Australian outback.

Glenda Guest grew up in Western Australia and currently lives in our own Blue Mountains. She teaches at Macquarie and Griffith Gold Coast universities.

The finalists for Best Book and Best First Book in each of the four Commonwealth Regions: Africa, Caribbean and Canada, South Asia and Europe, and South East Asia and Pacific were:

Africa
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubeni from Nigeria won Best First Book for I Do Not Come to You by Chance
Marié Heese from South Africa won Best Book for The Double Crown

Caribbean and Canada
Shandi Mitchell from Canada won Best First Book for Under This Unbroken Sky
Michael Crummey from Canada won Best Book for Galore

South Asia and Europe
Daniyal Mueenuddin from Pakistan won Best First Book for In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Rana Dasgupta from the UK won Best Book for Solo

South East Asia and Pacific
Glenda Guest from Australia won Best First Book for Siddon Rock
Albert Wendt from Samoa won Best Book for The Adventures of Vela