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Aussie Authors Challenge Rushdie & Bergeron 2008

Booker Longlist -

Kevin Parker reports-

30th July- Australian author MICHELLE DE KRETSER'S(left)love story about a young Indian-Australian, The Lost Dog, winner of both the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year and the prestigious (au)$40,000 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, has now been longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Sydneyscreenwriter, Steve Tolz, has also been nominated for his first novel,A Fraction of the Whole. {Book Award Tragic Blog. Booker comment>>}

Ms. De Kretser and Mr. Tolz are in some very prestigious company in the list of thirteen alongside SalmanRushdie's The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel and Irish writer Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture. Mr. Rushdie recently won the 40th Best of Booker with his Midnights Children: A Novel.

The only other previous winner of the Booker, John Berger, is in the running with From A to X: Some Letters Recuperated by John Berger. He won the prize way back in 1972 with the G.: A Novel - obviously a man of letters. Five first time novelists are also in the running.

A surprise, but welcome inclusion is Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith which recently won The Ian Flemming Steel Dagger awarded by the UK Crime Writers Association. Not surprisingly Salman Rushdie is early favourite alongside Joseph O' Neill's Netherland: A Novel. ....Full Longlist>>

Booker PR Machine Keeps Prize in the Spotlight. Commentary Book Award Tragic Blog>>

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher wins UK £30,000 Samuel Johnson prize

J summerscale_kate uly 15- Melodrama, murder, suspense and courtroom drama suffuse the book that has been awarded the UK's Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction.

Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective beat the favourite for the award - Patrick French's biography of VS Naipaul - to take-out a cheque for £30,000 in this the world's richest non-fiction prize. The winning book presents a detailed account of famous 1860 murder of a three-year-old child of a respectable middle-class family. Saville Kent, the child,disappeared from his bedroom at night and was later found stuffed down a servants' privy in the grounds of the house. As events unfold, suspicions become focused on the family and household servants: was this gruesome murder an inside job? Full story on this book award and other shortlisted titles www.literaryawards.co.uk>

Sir Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children Wins Best Ever Booker- 10th July, London-Salman Rushdie(left) has beaten five other fellow literary heavyweights to win the Best of Booker Prize for his path-breaking novel Midnight's Children (Everyman's Library). Readers from across the world, defying the conventional wisdom that it is a “difficult” read, voted it as their favorite. Rushdie is currently in the US to promote his new book The Enchantress of Florence.

Midnight's Children, which won a Booker Prize in 1981 and was chosen for the Booker of Bookers in 1993, was picked from a short-list of six previous Booker winners. That list included Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist(1974); J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace(1999); Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda( 1988); Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road( 1995); and J.G. Farrel’s The Siege of Krishnapur(1973).Full story>>

Frances Fyfield Wins £20,000 Duncan Lawrie Crime Writers' Dagger London- JULY 10 2008: Kevin Parker reports-
Frances Fyfield (left) has won the £20,000 Duncan Lawrie Dagger for her novel Blood from Stone. The International Duncan Lawrie Dagger has gone to Dominique Manotti with Lorraine Connection, translated from the French by Amanda Hopkinson and Ros Schwartz. Other category winners:

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger: Tom Rob Smith for Child 44
Non-Fiction Dagger: Kester Aspden for Nationality: Wog: The Hounding of David Oluwale
John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger: Matt Rees for The Bethlehem Murders (Omar Yussef Mystery Series)
Dagger in the Library: Craig Russell
Short Story Award: Martin Edwards for The Bookbinder's Apprentice from The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries
Debut Dagger: Amer Anwar for Western Fringes. Story>>

Arthurian Legend Wins Britain's 'Booker of the Playground' - The Carnegie Medal-Kevin Parker reports- 26th June,2008,London,, London-A book which casts King Arthur as a bloodthirsty tyrant and Merlin ashis political spin doctor has won the 2008 Carnegie Medal for children's literature.

Here Lies Arthur, by Philip Reeve (left) , is a dark re-telling of the Arthurian legend and a far cry from Camelot with some of his characters bearing more than a passing gravett_emily resemblance to modern-day political figures.Full story>>

Emily Gravetts Brave Mouse Wins Kate Greenaway Medal for 2008

Emily Gravett (right), has been awarded the Kate Greenaway for the second time ,. She is a widely acclaimed illustrator with numerous other awards to her name. Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears tells the story of a small rodent who realises the humans who terrify him are just as terrified as he is. Story>>

Boston Globe Horn Children & Teen Award Winners-Kevin Parker reports-

19th June (book links to amazon)-The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie can now add the Boston Globe Horn Fiction Award to it's National Book Award win last year. Other winners were Picture Books: At Night by Jonathan Bean Nonfiction: The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain Special Citation, for excellence in graphic storytelling: The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Full story>>

Lebanese Author Rawi Hage Wins EU100,000 Dublin International Literary Award-June 12 -- Lebanese author Rawi Hage {left}has won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for De Niros Game, collecting 100,000 euros ($154,000) in what is billed as the world's richest prize for a single work of fiction. Full story>>

UK Orange Prize for Women Writers Winners- 4th June, London. Rose Tremain has won the £30,000 ($58,500) 2008 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction with The Road Home. Joanna Kavenna has won The New Writers Award with Inglorious... Full story>>

Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2008 Books of the Year-Kevin Parker reports-

18th May-Canadian Lawrence Hill's (left) Someone Knows My Name: A Novel, (published as The Book of Negroes in Canada) told in the voice of an abducted 18th century 11 year-old West African girl, has won the £10,000 prize for best book whilst Tahmima Anam of Bangladesh has won the £5000 Overall Best First Book prize for A Golden Age, a fictionalised account of her country's war for independence in 1971. In our view, Ms. Anam is an author we will all be hearing moreof....Full details Literaryawards.co.uk>

Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz has added to it's prestigious award collection by winning the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Other winners included Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 by Robert Hass in Poetry.,Full lists and story>>

Pen Faulkner Winner. Described by some, very unjustly inour view, as a former Chick-lit Author, Kate Christensen has now joined the 'Elite Writers Guild' having won the Pen/Faulkner, and, The Great Man, is a great book... Shortlists and story

The Australian Literary Award Scene is alive & well.The Aussie equivalent of the Booker, The Miles Franklin Prize shortlists are up. The Australian National Biography and NSW Premier's Literary winners also make fine reading>>LiteraryAwards.com.au>>

A Thousand Splendid Suns Illumines British Awards

Khaled Hosseini (left) ( A Thousand Splendid Suns), JK Rowlings (Lifetime Achievement) and Ian McEwan ( On Chesil Beach) were amongst the winners at this years Galaxy British Book awards . Prizes were given ten categories. Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman won the children's award. Full Story>>

Other Headlines

Richard Morgan's Thirteen wins the 2008 Arthur C. Clarke

1st May- A flat-out thriller, combining a savage man-hunt with speculation on the dangers of genetic engineering, Thirteen, by,Richard Morgan, has won this Arthur C. Clarke SF award Full story>>

Mystery of Agatha Winners Revealed-27th April- Winners of this years Aggies have been revealed at the annual Malice Domestic Conference. Do you know who got em? Full lists

The Yiddish Policemen's Union & Harry Potter Triumph as Nebs Land 27th April- Sci-fi Nebula award winners Full Story & lists>>

The 2008 IMPAC Dublin has lived up to it's international brief with a pan-continental selection of authors on the 2008 shortlist of eight. Many big names missed out but some new stars are in ascendancy. Detailed coverage

Son of King Wins Bram Stoker Horror Prize

Joe Hill (left), the son of mega-star novelist Stephen King, has won the 2007 Best First Novel Prize for Heart-Shaped Box: A Novelat the Stokers. A self-confessed collector of rejection slips he now stands alongside dad who won the Novel category for Lisey's Story won this year by Sarah Langens,The Missing. Full story