Bluestalking

NBCC finalists

I'm a bad egg for not having promoted the NBCC's short-list for this year's awards before now, but it could be worse. I could have waited 'til the absolute last minute instead of a virtual twenty minutes before.

The awards will be announced in March, though I'm not sure of the date. I didn't vote this time around, so didn't pay much attention to the shortlist or awards dates.

Here are the finalists:

Fiction

Jennifer Egan, A Visit From The Goon Squad, Knopf

Jonathan Franzen. Freedom. Farrar, Straus And Giroux.

David Grossman, To The End Of The Land. Translated by Jessica Cohen. Knopf.

Hans Keilson.Comedy In A Minor Key. Translated by Damion Searls. Farrar, Straus And Giroux

Paul Murray. Skippy Dies. Faber & Faber.

* I've read only Franzen's Freedom, and hope to God it doesn't win because it doesn't deserve to. In my mind it didn't live up to all the hype.

Not having read the others, I'll go ahead and take a stab at the winner - David Grossman. Why? Because it's an anti-war novel.

 

Biography

Sarah Bakewell. How To Live, Or A Life Of Montaigne. Other Press

Selina Hastings. The Secret Lives Of Somerset Maugham: A Biography. Random House.

Yunte Huang. Charlie Chan: The Untold Story Of The Honorable Detective And His Rendezvous With American History. Norton.

Thomas Powers. The Killing Of Crazy Horse. Knopf.

Tom Segev. Simon Wiesenthal: The Lives And Legends. Translated by Ronnie Hope. Doubleday

* I've read none at all of these. Not sure whom to vote for, but I'll take a while guess anyway: Sarah Bakewell, because this book sounds so dratted good, and I want it in the worst way!

 

Autobiography

Kai Bird, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978, Scribner

David Dow, The Autobiography of an Execution, Twelve

Christopher Hitchens Hitch-22: A Memoir, Twelve    

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Hiroshima in the Morning, Feminst Press

Patti Smith, Just Kids, Ecco

Darin Strauss, Half a Life, McSweeney’s

*I read Hitchen's Hitch-22, and it was a little bit of a snore. I've hear Patti Smith's book is excellent, but is it serious enough to pass the judges? Failing her, I'm betting on Rahna Reiko Rizzuto.

 

Criticism

Elif Batuman. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. Farrar, Straus and Giroux


Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings. Harper


Clare Cavanagh. Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West. Yale University Press.


Susie Linfield. The Cruel Radiance. University of Chicago Press.


Ander Monson. Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir. Graywolf

* Feeling very inadequate in this category, as well. I've read a big, fat ZERO of these. My guess: Susie Linfield.

 

Nonfiction

Barbara Demick. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Spiegel & Grau



S.C. Gwynne. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American, Scribner

Jennifer Homans. Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. Random


Siddhartha Mukherjee. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Scribner


Isabel Wilkerson. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. Random Poetry

Anne Carson. Nox. New Directions


Kathleen Graber. The Eternal City. Princeton University Press 


Terrance Hayes. Lighthead. Penguin Poets


Kay Ryan. The Best of It. Grove


C.D. Wright. One with Others: [a little book of her days]. Copper Canyon

* Same here, haven't read a one, so another shot in the dark: Siddhartha Mukherjee.

 

Poetry

Anne Carson. Nox. New Directions


Kathleen Graber. The Eternal City. Princeton University Press 


Terrance Hayes. Lighthead. Penguin Poets


Kay Ryan. The Best of It. Grove


C.D. Wright. One with Others: [a little book of her days]. Copper Canyon

I'm so poetry challenged. I can't even guess on this one. I'm wimping out.                             

We'll see if I still have my uncanny sense for prize winning books, despite being so unconnected from pretty much all the nominees. This is why I bet no money on my choices, which is probably a pretty good idea.

See you on March 11, when we can find out the actual winners!

Website - find out what books were released on your birthday

Now, this is fun!

Link

In Cold Blood was released on mine. Also, Valley of the Dolls. Oh, and Up the Down Staircase, which I have a vague memory is about mental illness? Have to double check that.

Enjoy!

 

Top 100 books sold in the UK since 1998

Don't know whether to laugh or cry. Disappointing to see a few of these made the list, while much more literary fiction didn't.

Data from Guardian.co.uk:

"The Top-selling 100 books of all time (well, since Nielsen records begain in 1998) are published today.

The top 100 books - of all time and of the last year - is out. It shows Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code is the big seller of the last decade, followed closely by JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels."

 Link

I've read:

All the Harry Potters

Angels & Demons (I was curious! And underwhelmed.)

Tried first Stephenie Meyer but threw it aside.

The Lovely Bones (Underwhelmed)

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Enjoyed very much)

The Kite Runner (")

Time-Traveler's Wife (Okay. Liked it medium-ish)

Atonement (Liked very much)

No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Enjoyed very much)

Birdsong (Underwhelmed)

Labyrinth (Enjoyed)

Captain Corelli (Took forever to get into, then loved it)

Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Underwhelmed)

Very Hungry Caterpillar (Kids loved it!)

Chocolat (Enjoyed)

Angela's Ashes (Enjoyed, but so depressing!)

To Kill a Mockingbird (A classic, read several times, but a bit over-rated)

Catcher in the Rye (see above TKAM - even more over-rated)

Brick Lane (Enjoyed)

A Spot of Bother (Greatly enjoyed)

And that's it for me. But several of these - including many cookbooks and bios of people I'm not at all curious about - would never make my reading list, anyway. I'm getting more discriminating the older I get!

Sharon Osbourne? Really?

Sigh.

 

Top 100 "Killer Thrillers"

From NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128718927&ft=1&f=1032#results

 

Of these I've read 11:

The Shining

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Dracula

Angels & Demons

Rebecca

'Salem's Lot

Dead Zone

The Woman in White

In the Woods

The Club Dumas

 

I don't know. Doesn't seem like all that impressive a list, to me. And I question their definition of "thriller" in a few cases. But it's a list. And I like lists.

 

Sunday Times (South Africa) Literary Awards

Awards: Sunday Times (South Africa) Literary Awards

Finalists for the 2010 Sunday Times (South Africa) Literary Awards include:

Nonfiction
Ways of Staying by Kevin Bloom
A Fork in the Road by Andre Brink
Begging to be Black by Antjie Krog
The Honour to Serve by James Ngculu
The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law by Albie Sachs

Fiction
Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
High Low In-between by Imraan Coovadia
Saracen at the Gate by Zinaid Meeran
The Book of the Dead by Kgebetli Moele
Small Moving Parts by Sally-Ann Murray