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ALA-YALSA 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults
In the US, Cath Crowley's A LITTLE WANTING SONG (our CHASING CHARLIE DUSKIN) is on the ALA-YALSA 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults List!
A day in the life of Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
Click on the link below to see a post on Meanjin's blog, Spike, written by our very own Helen Nolan. Helen spent a day with Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, and this is the (frankly, quite fascinating!) result:
http://meanjin.com.au/spike-the-meanjin-blog/post/a-day-in-the-life-of-dr-karl-kruszelnicki/
Lockie Leonard Series 2
The LOGIE and AFI Winning Lockie Leonard Series Two commences on the Nine Network on Saturday 21st August at 12.30 PM.
Visit the following websites for more information:
And here's the fabulous Lockie Leonard titles (by Tim Winton):
2010 RUSA Book and Media Awards
Congratulations to Malla Nunn and Colm Toibin who have been recognised at the 2010 RUSA Book & Media Awards.
Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin, was named to the Notable Books List in the Fiction category. Winners were selected by the Notable Books Council, a group of Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) members and readers’ advisory experts from around the USA. Since 1944, the Notable Books Council has annually selected a list of 25 very good, very readable and at times very important fiction, nonfiction and poetry books for the adult reader. Books may be selected because they possess exceptional literary merit; expand the horizons of human knowledge; make a specialized body of knowledge accessible to the non-specialist; have the potential to contribute significantly to the solution of a contemporary problem; and/or present a unique concept.
A Beautiful Place to Die, by Malla Nunn, was named Winner of the Mystery category for the Reading List Awards. Winners were selected by the Reading List Council, administered by the Collection Development Evaluation Section (CODES) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA). The Reading List annually recognizes the best books in eight genres: adrenaline (which includes suspense, thriller, and adventure), fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, and women’s fiction. This year’s list includes novels that will please die-hard fans as well as introduce new readers to the pleasures of genre fiction.
For more information, click here.
2009 Aurealis Awards
The Puzzle Ring, by Kate Forsyth, has been shortlisted for the 2009 Aurealis Award for Young Adult Fiction. Winners will be announced at the Aurealis Awards ceremony at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane on Saturday 23 January 2010. For more information about the awards, click here.
Golden Inky Awards
Congratulations to Randa Abdel-Fattah for winning the Golden Inky 2009 (Teen Choice Book Awards) for Where the Streets Had a Name. Simmone Howell was also shortlisted for the 2009 Inky's for her novel Everything Beautiful (Simmone won the inaugural Golden Inky in 2007 for her debut novel, Notes from the Teenage Underground).
The Inky Awards are run by the State Library of Victoria's Centre for Youth Literature and are Australia's only teen choice book awards, reflecting what teenagers want to read rather than what they are told to read.
AS THE EARTH TURNS SILVER by Alison Wong wins Janet Frame Fiction Award
Congratulations to Picador author Alison Wong whose superb debut novel AS THE EARTH TURNS SILVER has won the Janet Frame Fiction Award for 2009.
Worth $10,000, the annual award is given to benefit New Zealand writers by Janet Frame's estate from an endowment fund the world renowned Kiwi icon set up for that purpose before her death in 2004. The award is timed to commemorate the late author's birthday, 28 August. This year Janet Frame would have turned 85. In making the 2009 announcement, Frame's niece and executor Pamela Gordon said that this year's award recipients were highly regarded for their poetry as well as for their fiction. Gordon said the Janet Frame trustees felt sure that Wong's debut novel As the Earth Turns Silver (Picador 2009), would attract further honours and prizes.
Better Than God wins The Age Book of the Year 2009 for Poetry
Congratulations to Picador author Peter Porter whose book Better than God has won the 2009 Age Book of the Year for poetry.
Peter, who turned 80 earlier this year, said Better than God was a deliberately teasing title. "I'm fascinated by dogma and theology but that doesn't mean it's part of my belief," he said from London, where he has lived for more than 50 years. "God's work in the world, if it exists, is only to be seen through the people we are who act it out. And so in a way, whether we invented him or he invented us, we have to live the life given to a human being on earth. And we are so good at interpreting it and making it work. (So) it is really in praise of human endeavour and imagination."
Announcing the Winners of 9th Davitt Awards
A Beautiful Place To Die (Pan Macmillan), the debut novel by Sydney-based filmmaker turned crime writer, Malla Nunn, has won Sisters in Crime’s Davitt Awards for the best (adult) crime novel by an Australian woman in 2008.
Nunn told the Davitts Awards ceremony by phone from Maryland USA that she had written the novel part-time, between school hours. “I dreamt it would one day get published. Winning an award was beyond my dreams. The Davitt is an honour that means a great deal to me because it comes from my peers: a group of women who like murder, mayhem, sleaze and a great yarn as much as I do. Your support has made my maiden journey into the world of crime fiction an absolute joy.”
Sisters in Crime spokesperson, Dr Sue Turnbull, said that the novels of Katherine Howell had struck a chord with Sisters in Crime members. “Last year Katherine Howell took out the Davitt Award (Adult Fiction) for Frantic. This year the 500 members of Sisters in Crime have voted for her second novel, The Darkest Hour, as the top book of 2008.
“It’s not hard to see why – her fast moving plots, sharp writing and well-developed characters grip the reader from the first page. Both novels feature a woman paramedic and draw on Howell’s considerable experience in the field.”
Howell, who worked as an ambulance officer in Tweed Heads while she wrote her first novel, told the crowd: “It's truly an honour to be here again accepting a Davitt award, and to win the reader's choice category is really something special. The members of Sisters in Crime are both highly discerning and very widely-read so for The Darkest Hour to be selected as their favourite read of the year is wonderful.”
The awards are named after Ellen Davitt (1812-1879) who wrote Australia’s first mystery novel, Force and Fraud, in 1865.
White Demon Extract from Ninemsn.com.au
Click here to visit the ninemsn website, where they're running an extract from Chris Weyers' White Demon.
Pan Macmillan Australia Site Makeover
If you've visited the Pan Macmillan site before, you'll notice that we've made quite a few changes! We wanted to give the site a more updated look and feel with the functionality you've come to expect. However, as with any new venture, there may be glitches, so if you find one, please let us know via email so we can fix it! Alternatively, if you just want to make a comment on the site, or ask a question, you can do that as well at webmaster@panmacmillan.com.au.
Brooklyn on Booker Longlist
Hearty congratulations to Picador Australia author Colm Tóibín, whose exquisite novel, Brooklyn, has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The shortlist is announced in September, the winner in October.
The chair of judges, James Naughtie, said yesterday: 'The five Man Booker judges have settled on thirteen novels as the longlist for this year's prize. We believe it to be one of the strongest lists in recent memory, with two former winners, four past-shortlisted writers, three first-time novelists and a span of styles and themes that make this an outstandingly rich fictional mix.'
Chaired by broadcaster and author James Naughtie, the 2009 judges are Lucasta Miller, biographer and critic; Michael Prodger, Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph; Professor John Mullan, academic, journalist and broadcaster and Sue Perkins, comedian, journalist and broadcaster.
A total of 132 books, 11 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the ‘Man Booker Dozen' longlist of 13 books.
Productivity Commission Report
The Productivity Commission has released its report into Australia's Restrictions on the Parallel Importation of Books.
Winner of Silent Predator competition
The winner of the luxury trip for two to South Africa is Kelvin Smith, from Port Kennedy, Western Australia. For more information, visit Tony Park's website.
Dorothy Porter 1954-2008
Born and raised in Sydney, Dorothy Porter established a reputation as one of Australia's most exciting and innovative writers at an early age. Her poetry collections, Little Hoodlum (1975) and Driving Too Fast (1989), as well as the provocative verse novel Akhenaten (1992) drew critical praise both here and abroad. But it was her eighth book, The Monkey's Mask, first published in 1994, that took her work to a broader audience, and confirmed her place as a true pioneer. A detective romance novel in verse, The Monkey's Mask won the Age Poetry Book of the Year and the National Book Council's Turnbull Fox Phillips Poetry Prize, was published to considerable success and critical acclaim in the UK, the US and Europe, and in 2001 was made into a film directed by Samantha Lang and starring Susie Porter.
Ever a keen collaborator, Dorothy wrote libretti for the chamber operas The Ghost Wife (2000) and The Eternity Man (2005) with composer Jonathan Mills, and lyrics with musician Paul Grabowsky for the CD Before Time Could Change Us (2005). In recent months she had been working with Tim Finn on the rock opera January. Her latest verse novel, El Dorado, was published by Picador in 2007, and was shortlisted for the Age Poetry Book of the Year, the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, the Prime Minister's Literary Award, and the Ned Kelly Award. Throughout her career, Dorothy taught in schools, universities, prisons and community centres and toured extensively to promote her work.
A big-hearted maverick and a spirited, independent thinker, Dorothy connected with most everyone she met, and her energy and passion were utterly infectious. Her work will live on, but she is sorely missed.
Winner of the IMPAC Award 2008
Congratulations to Picador author Rawi Hage, whose novel De Niro's Game has won the 13th annual International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world's richest literary prize valued at an extraordinary €100,000. The IMPAC award caps a whirlwind ascent to literary stardom for an author whose book was written in his third language, English (he also speaks Arabic and French). Nominated for prestigious literary prizes in Canada and abroad, De Niro's Game has so far been sold in fifteen territories and can be read in a dozen languages. The IMPAC award is not only lucrative for the author, it is especially meaningful for readers because the books selected are nominated by public libraries from around the world.
Macmillan books go Digital
Books by Macmillan’s bestselling authors such as Matthew Reilly, Di Morrissey and Andy Griffiths have been published in digital format and are being sold through a retailer for the first time in Australia. Macmillan has published 400 titles and made them available to browse, search and purchase through www.macmillandigital.com.au and www.dymocks.com.au. As part of our digital initiative, you can also buy all our print books from our online bookshop at www.panmacmillanbookshop.com.au. For more information, click here (.pdf).