24books.org - book awards

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4.18.12
Pulitzer Prize Winners - Don't look for a fiction winner, there is none.
   The Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University in New York, which administers the awards, did not name a winner in the fiction, or editorial writing category. The last time no winner was named for fiction was in 1977.
   The absence of an award for fiction that was perhaps the most shocking result of the committee’s voting. A winning book can be an instant boost to sales and is one of the most closely watched awards in the publishing industry. Finalists in the category included Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, who died in 2008.

poetry
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

biography
George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

nonfiction
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

history
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

               Publishers of this year's winners are going back to press.

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, with Viking publishing 9,000 copies with a sticker adhered to the book and an additional 10,000 with the seal imprinted on the cover.

W.W. Norton will go back to press for 15,000 copies of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.

Graywolf will add 10,000 copies to its 7,000 already in print for poetry winner Life on Mars.
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Orange prize 2012 shortlist
Six novelists were named as contenders for the 17th annual award of a prize dedicated to excellence in fiction written by women.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
(she won the prize 10 years ago for Bel Canto)

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick

The overall winner will be announced on May 30 at a ceremony in London's Royal Festival Hall.
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4.10.12
The 2012 Hugo Awards will be presented at Chicon 7 in Chicago, on September 3.

BEST NOVEL finalists
Among Others by Jo Walton
A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin
Deadline by Mira Grant
Embassytown by China Miéville
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey

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3.26.12
Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic has won the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
The judges considered more than 350 books from 2011. The winner will receive $15,000, the other four finalists will receive $5,000 each.

The other finalists were:
Russell Banks’s Lost Memory of Skin,
Don DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda
Anita Desai’s The Artist of Disappearance
Steven Millhauser’s We Others.
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3.8.12
National Book Critics Circle Awards winners

Fiction
Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman — winner
Open City by Teju Cole
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta

Nonfiction
Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War by Maya Jasanoff — winner
A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War
by Amanda Foreman
The Information by James Gleick
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
by Adam Hochschild
Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Autobiography
The Memory Palace by Mira Bartók — winner
One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing by Diane Ackerman
Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America
by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing by Luis J. Rodríguez
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War
by Deb Olin Unferth

Biography
George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis — winner
Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of the Revolution
by Mary Gabriel
Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961
by Paul Hendrickson
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel

Criticism
Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews
by Geoff Dyer — winner
Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything
by David Bellos
The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem
Karaoke Culture by Dubravka Ugresic
Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music by Ellen Willis

Poetry
Space, in Chains by Laura Kasischke — winner
Core Samples from the World by Forrest Gander
Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay
The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa
Devotions by Bruce Smith
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The nominees for the 2011 Nebula Awards for science fiction and fantasy writing were announced Monday, February 20. Winners will be announced during the SFWA's 47th annual Nebula Awards Weekend, May 17-20.

Novel
Among Others - Jo Walton
Embassytown - China Miéville
Firebird - Jack McDevitt
God’s War - Kameron Hurley
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti - Genevieve Valentine
The Kingdom of Gods - N.K. Jemisin
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The 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes will be presented on Friday, April 20, 2012, in a public ceremony in the Bovard Auditorium on the campus of USC.

2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists

Biography
Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned - John A. Farrell
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman - Robert K. Massie
Reading My Father: A Memoir - Alexandra Styron
My Long Trip Home - Mark Whitaker

Current Interest
Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything - David Bellos
El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency - Ioan Grillo
Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
Pakistan: A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven
The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science and Fear - Seth Mnookin

Fiction
Ghost Light - Joseph O’Connor
The Cat’s Table - Michael Ondaatje
The Buddha in the Attic - Julie Otsuka
Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories - Edith Pearlman
Luminarium - Alex Shakar

Graphic Novel
I Will Bite You! And Other Stories - Joseph Lambert
Celluloid - Dave McKean
Finder: Voice - Carla Speed McNeil
Congress of the Animals - Jim Woodring
Garden - Yuichi Yokoyama

History
The Anatomy of a Moment: Thirty-Five Minutes in History and Imagination - Javier Cercas
1861: The Civil War Awakening - Adam Goodheart
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 - Adam Hochschild
Molotov’s Magic Lantern: A Journey in Russian History - Rachel Polonsky
Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America - Richard White

Mystery / Thriller
Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson
Plugged - Eoin Colfer
11/22/1963 - Stephen King
Snowdrops: A Novel - A.D. Miller
The End of Wasp Season - Denise Mina

Poetry
Songs of Unreason - Jim Harrison
Discipline - Dawn Lundy Martin
The Public Gardens - Linda Norton
Double Shadow: Poems - Carl Phillips
Devotions - Bruce Smith

Science & Technology
A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher - Joel Achenbach
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood - James Gleick
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men - Mara Hvistendahl
Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius - Sylvia Nasar
Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution - Holly Tucker

Young Adult Literature
Beauty Queens - Libba Bray
The Big Crunch - Pete Hautman
A Monster Calls: Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd - Patrick Ness
Life: An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet
The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
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BAD SEX IN FICTION AWARDS - something a little different
Each year since 1993, Literary Review presents the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award to the author who produces the worst description of a sex scene in a novel. The award itself is in the form of a "semi-abstract trophy representing sex in the 1950s", which depicts a naked woman draped over an open book. The award was originally established by Rhoda Koenig, a literary critic, and Auberon Waugh, then the magazine's editor.
The given rationale is "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.

12.8.11 UPDATE
David Guterson has won the 19th annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award, for Ed King.

Literary Review Winners of the Bad Sex in Fiction award:

1993 A Time to Dance by Melvyn Bragg
1994 The Stonebreakers by Philip Hook
1995 Gridiron by Philip Kerr
1996 The Big Kiss: An Arcade Mystery by David Huggins
1997 The Matter of the Heart by Nicholas Royle
1998 Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
1999 Starcrossed by A. A. Gill
2000 Kissing England by Sean Thomas
2001 Rescue Me by Christopher Hart
2002 Tread Softly by Wendy Perriam
2003 Bunker 13 by Aniruddha Bahal
2004 I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
2005 Winkler by Giles Coren
2006 Twenty Something by Iain Hollingshead
2007 The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
2008 Shire Hell by Rachel Johnson,
         AND a Lifetime Achievement Award to John Updike
2009 The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
2010 The Shape of Her by Rowan Somerville
2011 Ed King by David Guterson (awarded 12.18.12)

Take a look at these lists