IT'S A CRIME! (OR A MYSTERY...)

The Man Booker Longlist 2011

Here it is:

Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

Note that A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic) appeared on the CWA Gold Dagger longlist last week.  The novels of Stephen Kelman, A.D. Miller, Yvvette Edwards and Patrick McGuinness are debuts.

Congratulations to all!

Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year Longlist 2011

Open to British and Irish authors whose novels were published in paperback in the period 1 January 2010 to 31 May 2011, the longlist was announced today:

Blacklands, by Belinda Bauer (Corgi)
From the Dead, by Mark Billingham (Sphere)
Blood Harvest, by S J Bolton (Corgi Books)
61 Hours, by Lee Child (Bantam Books)
Winterland, by Alan Glynn (Faber)
A Room Swept White, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder)
The Woodcutter, by Reginald Hill (Harper Fiction)
Rupture, by Simon Lelic (Picador)
Sister, by Rosamund Lupton (Piatkus)
Dark Blood, by Stuart MacBride (Harper Fiction)
Fever of the Bone, by Val McDermid (Sphere)
Fifty Grand, by Adrian McKinty (Serpent's Tail)
Still Bleeding, Steve Mosby (Orion)
The Twelve, by Stuart Neville (Vintage)
Random, by Craig Robertson (Simon & Schuster)
The Holy Thief, by William Ryan (Pan Books)
The Anatomy of Ghosts, by Andrew Taylor (Michael Joseph)
A Capital Crime, by Laura Wilson (Quercus).

Congratulations to the authors.

The shortlist will be announced on 1 July and the winner will be announced on the Thursday of the festival weekend.

Wales Book of the Year Longlist 2011

The Wales Book of the Year Longlist for 2011 was announced by Literature Wales yesterday.  Find further details here.  Congratulations to the authors listed.

The New Year's Honours 2011 focused on Writing and Publishing

Let’s start with someone close to the heart of many crime fiction readers, especially those who love translated crime.  An enviable record in publishing, but a pioneer when it comes to translated crime, Christopher Maclehose has been awarded the CBE.  While others concerned themselves with the identity of Top Gear’s ‘The Stig’ and the publishing world went to the courts of law, Maclehose had long been instrumental in delivering another similarly named phenomenon in the UK: Stieg Larsson.

Others in publishing in this year’s honours include:

CVO

SHAWCROSS, The Honourable William Hartley Hume, Author.

GBE

WEIDENFELD, Arthur George, Baron, Publisher. For public service.

DBE

FRASER, The Lady Antonia, C.B.E., Historian and Author. For services to Literature.

OBE

ALLFREY, Ms Ellah Wakatama. For services to the Publishing Industry.

MBE

USBORNE, Thomas Peter, Managing Director, Usborne Publishing Ltd. For services to the Publishing Industry.

HOLMSTROM, Ms Lakshmi, Writer and Translator. For services to Literature.

Congratulations to all.

A Seasonal Message and a Year in Books…

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you have an excellent 2011 ahead of you.  Happy New Year!

I will resume the Books for Christmas series shortly.  Sadly, due to a nasty infection I was diverted in December and will carry on posting the collected Books for Christmas series but under a new tag of ‘2011 starts with recommendation heaven’.

You may know me by now.  I try to be a little different.  No year end top tens from me this year; just a look back on 2010’s year in books.  I hope you enjoy it.  It goes some way to explaining why there were fewer posts on this blog during the past year.

January saw the launch of the TV Book Club in the UK.  Bookworms across the country were crying out for this: a book show on terrestrial TV.  Hopes were high as it involved Amanda Ross who had set up the Richard & Judy Book Club.  But readers don’t go that deeply into backroom organisation and don’t really care.  ‘Richard & Judy’ was the brand and it was their word, their recommendations that mattered.  Criticism started early, as soon as the panel was announced.  Hopes were dashed, but bookworms retained patience and gave it time.  Low notes: celebrity central for bragging up a biography; most of the panel and guests; the wrong location, location, location for Jo Brand’s brand of humour.  High notes: Joan Bakewell as a guest; Ian McMillan on Ted Hughes, making poetry accessible; the books selected.  The series returns to our screens in January 2011.

Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Literature Award Nominees 2010

It’s that time of year again.  Many will be thinking of Christmas, but for the Literary Review yesterday was the day to announce the nominees for this year’s Bad Sex in Literature Award and here they are:

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (4th Estate)
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (Atlantic Books)
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon (Atlantic Books)
Maya by Alastair Campbell (Hutchinson)
A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee (Constable & Robinson)
Heartbreak by Craig Raine (Atlantic Books)
The Shape of Her by Rowan Somerville (W&N)
Mr Peanut by Adam Ross (Jonathan Cape).

I wonder how Atlantic Books have been feeling about this news…

For the first year in its history the judges considered extending the scope to include non-fiction as a result of Tony Blair’s A Journey.  However, his prose did not meet the required standard to move from longlist to nominee.  (Perhaps this is why we are now seeing the emphasis on ‘literature’ over the previous cuddly term of ‘bad sex in fiction’.)

The MSM’s coverage of this award appears to dwindle as each year passes, but TIME has provided a taster from Franzen if you feel the need to delve further.

The winner will be announced on November 29, at the usual place in London.

Galaxy National Book Awards Winners 2010

This year's winners of the Galaxy National Book Awards - 'a celebration of the best of British publishing' - were announced on Wednesday. Here they are:

CWA Gold, Ian Fleming Steel (Thriller) and John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Winners 2010

Well, this year we have some names to watch.  The New Blood is obviously for an author’s debut novel, but we have the same circumstance with the winner of the Gold, and the winner of the Steel is also in the early days of his writing career.  Many congratulations to Ryan David Jahn, Belinda Bauer and Simon Conway respectively.  In addition to finally meeting Ryan, I also met New Blood finalists Simon Lelic and William Ryan.  All are wonderful people and all are writing excellent novels, so please check out their books if you have not already done so.

Sadly, I did not get to meet Diane Janes on the night as the opportunity did not arise.  While it has been noted that Belinda Bauer was the runner-up for the Debut Dagger two years ago, Diane Janes was ‘highly commended’ for the same award in 2006, with the book that became ‘The Pull of the Moon’, on this year’s New Blood shortlist.  Don’t miss this one either.

There is a little controversy brewing over the Gold and New Blood winners.  Both Blacklands and Acts of Violence are capable of polarising opinion; thus I urge you to read them and make up your own mind.

Due to the judging, I didn’t quite find the right time to post up a review of William Ryan’s The Holy Thief.  This will follow shortly.

Enjoy your reading!

[Picture is of the New Blood winner, Ryan David Jahn.]

ITV Crime Thriller Awards 2010

Here’s a list of the winners from last night (in bold).  Congratulations to them all!

ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Night – Friday October 8th

It’s taking place next Friday night at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London and will be recorded for broadcasting on ITV3 on Tuesday 12 October from 21:00 to 22:30.  The shortlists/finalists for the movie and TV awards were announced this week, but first a reminder of the Crime Writers’ Association’s writing awards shortlists:

Gold Dagger
Blacklands, Belinda Bauer (Corgi)
Blood Harvest, S J Bolton (Bantam Press)
Shadowplay, Karen Campbell (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Way Home, George Pelecanos (Orion)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
A Loyal Spy, Simon Conway (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Dying Light, Henry Porter (Orion)
Innocent, Scott Turow (Macmillan)
The Gentlemen’s Hour, Don Winslow (Heinemann)

John Creasey Memorial (New Blood) Dagger
Acts of Violence, Ryan David Jahn (Pan)
Rupture, Simon Lelic (Picador)
The Holy Thief, William Ryan (Mantle )
The Pull of the Moon, Diane Janes (Robinson)

Now for the screen awards shortlists announced this week: