Today @ Penguin
Penguin Canada has been shortlisted for the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libris Awards in several categories!
The nominees are:
Author:
Will Ferguson
Alice Munro
Editor:
Andrea Magyar
Fiction:
419 by Will Ferguson
Dear Life by Alice Munro
Revenge of the Vinyl Café by Stuart McLean
Penguin Canada has also been shortlisted for the Publisher of the Year and Distributor of the Year awards. In addition, Alice Munro will be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award, alongside Jack Rabinovitch.
The Libris Awards are organized by the Canadian Booksellers Association and the Retail Council of Canada, and are voted on by members of the Canadian book industry. The awards honour authors whose works were loved by book buyers, and the talented publishing professionals who helped those books connect meaningfully with their readers.
The winners will be announced at a dinner on Monday, June 3. For more information, please visit http://www.cbabook.org/.
The World by Bill Gaston has won the 2013 Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction!
The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize is given under the umbrella of the BC Book Prizes, which recognize outstanding writers from British Columbia across several categories. The Fiction prize is given in honour of the late Ethel Wilson, a British Columbia writer (Hetty Dorval, Love and Salt Water, The Equations of Love, Swamp Angel, etc.) who received the Canada Council Medal in 1964 as well as the Order of Canada Medal of Service in 1970 for her contribution to Canadian literature.
Bill’s win was announced at a gala dinner at Government House in Victoria, BC, this past Saturday, May 4th, along with the winners in the other categories (non-fiction, poetry, children’s literature, etc.). Each award carries a cash prize of $2,000 as well as a certificate of recognition.
Triggers by Robert J. Sawyer and Under My Skin by Charles de Lint have been nominated for the 2013 Aurora Awards
The shortlist for the 2013 Aurora Awards has just been revealed, and we are pleased to announce that Triggers by Robert J. Sawyer (Category: Best English Novel) and Under My Skin by Charles de Lint (Category: Best English YA Novel) are both on it.
The Aurora Awards are presented by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, and have honoured the best work in the field each year since their inception in 1980. The books are nominated and voted on annually by members of the Association. Voting will begin on May 6th and will close at noon PDT on Friday, September 13th, 2013, and the awards will be presented at Can-Con in Ottawa, October 4 – 6, 2013.
Jeffrey Simpson’s Chronic Condition (Allen Lane Canada) has won the prestigious 2012 Donner Prize
Jeffrey’s win was announced yesterday evening in an awards ceremony here in Toronto. The Donner Prize is, again, one of the most prestigious non-fiction prizes in Canada, as well as one of the richest, with the winner taking home $50,000 and each finalist $7,500. The aim of the award is to inspire lively debate on public policy issues and to reward provocative and excellent work that speaks to an informed readership.
The Prize has this to say of the book: “Chronic Condition makes a vital contribution to the public’s understanding of the cost of health care and delivery issues, examining the tenets of the Medicare system that Canadians cling to so passionately. Breaking the silence about the changes and choices that Canadians face, Simpson has written a book that deserves to be read and discussed.”
For more information, please visit http://www.donnerbookprize.com/.
La Gran Cocina Latina (Norton) has won an IACP Cookbook Award, in the category of General Cookbooks
La Gran Cocina Latina (Norton) has won an IACP Cookbook Award, in the category of General Cookbooks.
The IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) is a worldwide forum for the development and exchange of information, knowledge, and inspiration within the professional food and beverage community. Its multi-faceted membership includes chefs, restaurateurs, foodservice operators, writers, photographers, stylists, marketers, nutritionists, and academia, hailing from hospitality, tourism, publishing, and many other disciplines. Its prestigious awards program recognizes the most accomplished in the industry across a wide variety of categories. The cookbook awards have been presented for more than 25 years.
The winners were announced at a ceremony last week at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. For more information, please visit http://www.iacp.com/.
Zadie Smith’s NW and A.M. Homes’ May We Be Forgiven have been shortlisted for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction
The shortlist for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction has just been revealed, and we are pleased to announce that Zadie Smith’s NW and A.M. Homes’ May We Be Forgiven are both on it. NW, of course, is published under the Hamish Hamilton imprint in Canada and the UK; May We Be Forgiven, while published by Granta in the UK, is published by Viking in the US and distributed by Penguin Canada.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction, an award based in the UK, is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world, honouring excellence, originality, and accessibility in women’s writing around the world. The prize, formerly sponsored by Orange, is anonymously endowed for this year, while sponsorship for future years is being negotiated.
The winner receives £30,000, along with a limited edition bronze figure (known as a “Bessie”), created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. The prize was originally created in order to recognize women’s writing, after the 1991 Booker Prize shortlist was announced and contained not a single female writer despite a wealth of fiction having been written by women that year.
The winner of the 2013 prize will be announced at a gala in London on Wednesday, June 5th. For more information, please visit http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/2013-prize/2013-shortlist.
The Commonwealth Writers' Prize has just announced its shortlist!
The two books on the list are Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (Faber & Faber), and The Spider King's Daughter by Onuzo Chibundu (also from the Faber list).
The Commonwealth Prize is awarded each year to the best first novel published by an author who resides in a Commonwealth country. A winner will be declared for each region—and awarded a cash prize of £2,500—and the overall winner will receive £10,000. The regional winners will be announced on May 14th, and the overall winner on May 31st at the Hay Festival in Wales.
The Prize is presented by the Commonwealth Foundation, an international development organization dedicated to promoting responsible, accountable governance and civic participation. The Commonwealth Writers branch aims to inspire writers and storytellers of all kinds to engage in decision-making processes that affect development as well as their own lives, and to make voices across many countries and cultures heard.
For more information, please visit commonwealthwriters.org/cbp-shortlist-2013.
Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award has just been released, and Bobcat by Rebecca Lee is on it!
The Frank O'Connor award is an international competition, and, with a cash prize of €25,000, is also the world's richest prize for a short story collection. The award is organized by the Munster Literature Centre and funded by the Cork City Council in honour of Frank O'Connor, an Irish short story writer who achieved world renown. The prize will be awarded at the close of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Festival in July, also held in Cork, which was O'Connor's hometown. Previous winners include Haruki Murakami, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Miranda July.
The shortlist will be announced in early June. For more information about the prize and the longlist, please visit frankoconnor-shortstory-award.net/site.
Jeffrey Simpson's Chronic Condition has been shortlisted for the Donner Prize!
Jeffrey Simpson's Chronic Condition (Allen Lane Canada) has been shortlisted for the prestigious Donner Prize.
The news was announced this morning in a press release from the Donner Canadian Foundation. The award is given to the best book on public policy written by a Canadian, and is designed to broaden policy debates, increase awareness of policy decision making, and make a contribution to policy discourse. The winner receives $50,000, and each of the other finalists receives $7,500.
The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in Toronto on April 25th, 2013. For more information on the award and this year's shortlist, please visit donnerbookprize.com.
Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour Shortlist Announced!
I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow by Jonathan Goldstein has been shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour!
The shortlist was announced yesterday, and the winner of the $15,000 award will be announced at a luncheon in Orillia on April 25th. The prize itself will be awarded at a gala dinner on June 8th, also in Orillia.
The Leacock Medal, given annually, is designed to honour the legacy of Stephen Leacock, and to foster the continued development of humour writing in Canada; it is the only award of its kind in the country, and has gained an international reputation.
For more information, please visit leacock.ca
Y Ties for Third Place in the Alcuin Awards!
Y by Marjorie Celona has tied for 3rd place in the Prose Fiction category of the 31st Annual Alcuin Awards for Excellence in Book Design. This is especially exciting, given that our very own Lisa Jager designed the cover.
The Alcuin Society has, since 1981, sponsored the only national competition for book design in Canada. The winning books are showcased in an awards catalogue published by the Society, promoted on their website, and exhibited nationally and internationally. The competition aims to recognize excellence in Canadian book design, and to recognize the achievement of outstanding designers.
For more information about the awards, please visit alcuinsociety.com/awards.
Joel Bakan's Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children has won the 2013 George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature!
The award, which is sponsored by Okanagan College, was announced this past Saturday at the literary festival Word Ruckus in Kelowna, BC. The Ryga Award recognizes an outstanding British Columbian author whose work explores relevant, contemporary social issues. In a press release, the award administrators made the following statement about Bakan's work:
"Bakan's book helps the reader understand how much businesses – like the pharmaceutical industry, multimedia organizations, and manufactured food companies – have gained access to our children's bodies and minds, and reminds us of the responsibility we have to our children today."
Bakan will travel to Kelowna on April 8 to hold a reading and discussion about his book, at 7PM at the Bohemian Café.
The Ryga Award was established in honour of George Ryga, who is thought by many to be the father of modern playwriting in British Columbia, and whose work explored many difficult social issues and challenges of his time.
For more information, please visit georgerygaaward.org
Donna Morrissey's The Deception of Livvy Higgs has been shortlisted for the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction!
The Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction is part of the Atlantic Book Awards; the shortlists for all categories (i.e. fiction, non-fiction, poetry) were announced in a press release yesterday. The Atlantic Book Awards aim to recognize outstanding novelists, poets, scholars, and publishers from Atlantic Canada.
The winners of each category will be announced during the Atlantic Book Awards and Festival, an event that runs from May 9–16 with free literary events taking place in all four Atlantic provinces. The awards show will take place on Thursday, May 16th, in Dartmouth, NS.
For more information, please visit atlanticbookawards.ca.
The finalists for the James Beard Awards have been released!
There are nominees in several cookbook categories, as follows:
Beverage:
Inventing Wine: A New History of One of the World's Most Ancient Pleasures by Paul Lukacs (Norton)
General Cooking:
What Katie Ate: Recipes and Other Bits and Pieces by Katie Quinn Davies (Viking Studio)
International:
Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America by Maricel E. Presilla (Norton)
Photography:
What Katie Ate: Recipes and Other Bits and Pieces by Katie Quinn Davies (Viking Studio)
The winners in each category will be announced on May 3rd, and awards presented at a gala event in New York City on May 6th, hosted by actor Stanley Tucci. The awards are, of course, given by the James Beard Foundation, in order to recognize excellence in all things culinary, be that books, television, blogs, restaurants, or chefs. The awards honour James Beard, an American cookbook author and teacher.
For more information, please visit jamesbeard.org
Jeffrey Simpson's Chronic Condition: Why Canada's Health Care System Needs to Be Dragged into the 21st Century (Allen Lane Canada) has been shortlisted for the 2013 Dafoe Prize!
The news was announced in a press release from the J.W. Dafoe Foundation earlier today. The winner of the $10,000 prize will be named later this spring, and the prize will be awarded at the J.W. Dafoe Foundation's Annual Book Prize Dinner in May.
The Dafoe Prize is given annually to an outstanding non-fiction book that deals with Canada, Canadians, and the role of Canada in international affairs. The prize honours John Wesley Dafoe, one of the most respected Canadian editors (at the Manitoba Free Press, later called the Winnipeg Free Press) of the 20th century.
For more information, please visit dafoefoundation.ca.
Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist Announced!
The longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013 (formerly known as the Orange Prize) was announced this morning:
- NW by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton);
- May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes (Viking in the US and Granta in the UK);
- Ignorance by Michèle Roberts (Bloomsbury); and
- Honor by Elif Shafak(Viking).
The Women’s Prize for Fiction, an award based in the UK, is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world, honouring excellence, originality, and accessibility in women’s writing around the world. The prize, formerly sponsored by Orange, is anonymously endowed for this year, while sponsorship for future years is being negotiated.
The winner receives £30,000, along with a limited edition bronze figure (known as a “Bessie”), created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. The prize was originally created in order to recognize women’s writing, after the 1991 Booker Prize shortlist was announced and contained not a single female writer despite a wealth of fiction having been written by women that year.
The shortlist will be announced at the London Book Fair on Tuesday, April 16th; the winner will be announced at a gala in London on Wednesday, June 5th.
For more information, please click here.
The Leanne Shapton's Swimming Studies (Blue Rider Press) has won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the Autobiography category.
The winners were announced at a well attended ceremony in the New School's Tishman Auditorium in New York City. The award's website praises the book, saying it "broke a mold, rethinking the autobiography category as it presented the life of a body, reflecting on Shapton's experience as a champion swimmer and subsequent experiences as an artist."
The National Book Critics Circle Awards aim to honour outstanding writing and to further national conversations about reading, criticism, and culture. The National Book Critics Circle was formed in 1974, with the goal of extending the famous Algonquin Round Table to a national dialogue.
For more information about the award and its winners by category, please click here
The film adaptation of Matt Baglio and Tony Mendez’s book Argo took home Oscars this year for best screenplay, best film editing, and the award show’s biggest category, best picture.
The true, declassified account of CIA operative Tony Mendez’s daring rescue of American hostages from Iran that inspired the critically-acclaimed film directed by and starring Ben Affleck, and co-starring John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston.
Read More
419 by Will Ferguson and The Cure for Everything! by Timothy Caulfield have been longlisted for the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award.
419 by Will Ferguson and The Cure for Everything! by Timothy Caulfield have been longlisted for the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award. The longlist is composed of titles selected by Alberta library professionals, and a shortlist of five titles will be released in early April. The Alberta reading public then chooses an overall winner from these five titles. The award is sponsored by the Edmonton Public Library, and is given annually to an Alberta author. Congratulations Will Ferguson and Timothy Caulfield!
Triggers and The Deception of Livvy Higgs Nominated for the Evergreen Award
The Forest of Reading is Canada’s largest recreational reading program; it is administered by the Ontario Library Association and aims to encourage a love of reading in people of all ages. Each individual tree is designed to promote books aimed at a certain age group; the Evergreen Award is designed for adult readers of all ages, and Canadian fiction and non-fiction titles are eligible. The nominated titles are selected by committees of public and school library practitioners.
The winner of the Evergreen Award will be announced in the fall of 2013. For a complete list of the nominated titles, please click here.
For more information about the Forest of Reading program and the individual trees, click here.
Chronic Condition Shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize!
The Shaughnessy Cohen Prize is administered by the Writers' Trust of Canada, and is one of the most prestigious non-fiction awards in the country. The prize is awarded to a book that illuminates a political subject of interest to Canadians, and enhances our understanding of that issue. Now in its twelfth year, the prize was founded in honour of Shaughnessy Cohen, a popular and outspoken Member of Parliament from Windsor, Ontario, who passed away in 1998. The finalists each receive $2,500, and the winner will receive $25,000.
Learn more about Chronic Condition
Penguin reveals cover for Khaled Hosseini's much anticipated new novel
“Hosseini's new novel, And the Mountains Echoed, will be released on May 21 and is hailed as one of biggest publishing events of 2013. This will be Hosseini’s first book in six years.”
— The Globe and Mail
Learn more about And the Mountains Echoed
Tim Cook's Warlords has been shortlisted for the 2013 Charles Taylor Prize!
Warlords is a fast-paced narrative that humanizes the war effort through the eyes of the prime ministers. Set against how our senior politicians governed themselves and the nation during these difficult times, it offers an invaluable perspective of war and war leaders.
The Charles Taylor Prize is Canada's most prestigious prize for literary non-fiction, designed to commemorate Charles Taylor's pursuit of excellence within this genre. The winner receives a cash prize of $25,000, and each shortlisted author will receive $2,000 each. The winner will be announced on Monday, March 4th. To learn more about the prize, visit www.charlestaylorprize.ca.
Maggot Moon Wins Costa Children's Book Award
In a press release, Gardner said the following of her win: “In all my experience since becoming a full-time writer, winning this award is the most phenomenal. I used to be an illustrator and now I paint with words; I've discovered exactly what words can achieve as pictures. Maggot Moon is a book I’ve always wanted to write and Standish has been waiting to be written for years. It is thrilling that the story now stands defiant in the world. It is a great honour to have won this award, and for me, it goes towards proving the power of dreams.”
The Costa Book Awards, formerly known as the Whitbread Prize, recognize superb writing across five categories: novels, biographies, poetry, debut novels, and children's literature; the winner of each category receives £5,000.00. The judges will also determine the overall winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award, worth £30,000, to be announced at a ceremony in London, England, on January 29th. This winner can be from any of the above-mentioned categories.
Penguin has three Gourmand World Cookbook Award winners
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The Gourmand World Cookbook Award winners for each country have just been announced, and Penguin Canada has winners in no less than three categories! Here are our big winners:
Best Book by a Female Chef, Canada, English Language:
-Pitchin’ In by Lynn Crawford
Best Food Photography, Canada, English Language:
Fast Flavours by Chef Michael Smith
Best Latin American Cuisine, Canada, English Language:
Quinoa Revolution by Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming
All three books are now eligible to compete against winners from other countries within these categories for the Best in the World awards. The Best in the World winners will be announced on Saturday, February 23, 2013, at a gala held under the Pyramid of the Louvre Museum in Paris, during the Paris Cookbook Fair.
Click here for more information.
Life! Death! Prizes!, a Costa Novel Award Shortlist nominee
The Costa Novel Award Shortlist has just been revealed, and Stephen May’s Life! Death! Prizes! (Bloomsbury) is on it. There are three other contenders on this year’s shortlist, including two-time Man Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel.
The Costa Book Awards, formerly known as the Whitbread Prize, recognize superb writing across five categories: novels, biographies, poetry, debut novels, and children’s literature. The winner of each category receives £5,000.00; these winners will be announced on January 2nd, 2013. The judges will also determine the overall winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award, worth £30,000, to be announced at a ceremony in London, England, on January 29th. This winner can be from any of the above-mentioned categories (not just novels).
This year also marks the inaugural Costa Short Story Award, the winner of which is determined by public vote. A shortlist of six will be announced on January 27th, and the winner will also be announced at the ceremony on the 29th.
Click here for more information, and for a full description of each shortlist.
Jean Little wins the 2012 Matt Cohen Award
I’m very pleased to announce that Jean Little has won the 2012 Matt Cohen Award in Celebration of a Writing Life. We’ve published a number of her books—Little by Little, Different Dragons, Mama’s Going to Buy You a Mockingbird, and Sand in the Wind, just to name a few—and it’s wonderful to see her recognized for her lifetime work of writing for young people.
Administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada, the Matt Cohen Award was presented yesterday evening along with the rest of the Writers’ Trust Awards at an event held at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto. The Matt Cohen Award is designed to celebrate a lifetime of writing and of contributions to Canadian literature; the winner can be a writer of poetry or prose in English or French. The jury had this to say about Jean Little’s work:
“Jean was a pioneer Canadian writer, standing almost alone as a major, internationally recognized Canadian children’s author. She was an outstanding leader when it came to fearless book promotion. Her school appearances were legendary... let’s just say they could send shivers of fear and joy through children’s spines."
Click here for more information.
Chronic Condition wins an environmental award
Jeffrey Simpson, author of Chronic Condition, has been honoured with an award in recognition for his contribution to environmental awareness and understanding, and particularly for his writing on topics such as energy and climate change.
This is an inaugural award, titled “The Environmental and Sustainable Development Leader Award”, and is presented by Pollution Probe, one of Canada’s most respected non-profit environmental organizations. The award will be presented at a gala dinner on November 20th, held at the Ritz-Carleton. Jeffrey will be giving the keynote speech to an audience composed of cabinet ministers, CEOs, and other Canadian government and business leaders.
For more information, please visit http://www.pollutionprobe.org/gala.
Private Empire a Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award winner
Steve Coll’s Private Empire: Exxon Mobile and American Power (The Penguin Press) has won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. The award was presented to Steve this past Thursday by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in New York.
The award, established in 2005 and worth £30,000, recognizes the book that provides the most valuable insight into contemporary business issues. The decision to award the prize to Private Empire was unanimous, and the judges call it “forensic, nuanced, and extremely well written”.
For more information, please visit The Financial Times, or visit this link for photos of the winner, finalists, and judges.
Chef Michael Smith’s Kitchen wins a Taste Canada award
Chef Michael Smith’s Kitchen by Michael Smith (Penguin Canada) has won the General English Language Cookbooks category at the Taste Canada Food Writing Awards.
The awards were presented at a gala ceremony and reception in Toronto yesterday evening. Formerly known as the Canadian Culinary Book Awards, the Taste Canada awards recognize the very best in Canadian food writing across a variety of categories.
For more information, please visit http://tastecanada.org/.
The Better Angels of Our Nature shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in History
Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature has been shortlisted for the 2012 Cundill Prize in History.
Again, the Cundill Prize, administered by McGill University, recognizes books that have a profound literary, social, and academic impact in some area of history. The winner, who will receive a prize of $75,000, will be announced at a ceremony on November 29th in Montreal. The 2012 Cundill Prize Lecture, given by Sergio Luzzatto from the University of Turin (the winner of the 2011 Cundill Prize), will also take place on November 29th.
Click here for more information. Please join me in congratulating Steven Pinker on being shortlisted for this important prize!
Will Ferguson wins the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize!
Congratulations to Will Ferguson for winning the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel 419! The jury citation noted “419 points in the direction of something entirely new: the Global Novel. It is a novel emotionally and physically at home in the poverty of Lagos and in the day-to-day of North America. It tells us the ways in which we are now bound together and reminds us of the things that will always keep us apart.”
Once You Break a Knuckle shortlisted for Dylan Thomas Prize
D.W. Wilson’s Once You Break a Knuckle (Hamish Hamilton Canada) has been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize for Young Writers.
The international prize, launched in 2006 and worth £30,000.00, is one of the most prestigious prizes in the world for young writers, and is aimed at recognizing talented authors at the start of their careers who will surely go on to achieve great things. The prize is presented by the University of Wales, and the shortlist has been described as “thunderingly good” by Welsh media.
The winner will be announced at a gala on November 9th, which is the anniversary of Dylan Thomas’s death.
For more information, please visit the University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize site.
Mo Yan wins the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2012
We're very pleased to announce that Chinese writer Mo Yan was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature this morning. His 1993 novel Red Sorghum is part of our US list, under the Viking imprint.
Mo Yan, born in 1955 in Shandong province in north-eastern China, is the author of many novels, short stories, and essays of social criticism. The Nobel Prize organization notes that “through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition.”
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 104 times since its establishment in 1901, and recognizes annually a writer who has made an outstanding contribution to literature. The awards ceremony will be held on December 10, 2012. Winners receive a medal, a diploma, and a cash award of 8 million Swedish kronor. For more information, please visit Nobelprize.org.
