Literary Awards
Miles Franklin Award 2008
An annual award of $30,000 bequeathed by the will of Australian novelist Miles Franklin for a published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases. Entries must have been published in the previous calendar year and entrants are required to submit one copy of the work to each of the five judges. Entries close January 31 and the winner is announced May/June.
| The Time We Have Taken |
Steven Carroll |
$27.99 |
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One summer morning in 1970, Peter van Rijn, proprietor of the television and wireless shop, pronounces his Melbourne suburb one hundred years old.
That same morning, Rita is awakened by a dream of her husband‘s snores, yet it is years since Vic moved north. Their son, Michael, has left for the city, and is entering the awkward terrain of first love.
As the suburb prepares to celebrate progress, Michael‘s friend Mulligan is commissioned to paint a mural of the area‘s history. But what vision of the past will his painting reveal?
Meanwhile, Rita‘s sometime friend Mrs Webster confronts the mystery of her husband‘s death. And Michael discovers that innocence can only be sustained for so long.
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Australian Book Industry Awards- Book of the Year 2008
The award winners are chosen by an academy of booksellers and publishers in Australia.
| People of the Book |
Geraldine Brooks |
$32.99 |
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When Hanna Heath gets a call in the middle of the night in her Sydney home about a precious medieval manuscript which has been recovered from the smouldering ruins of war–torn Sarajevo, she knows she is on the brink of the experience of a lifetime. A renowned book conservator, she must now make her way to Bosnia to start work on restoring The Sarajevo Haggadah, a Jewish prayer book –– to discover its secrets and piece together the story of its miraculous survival. But the trip will also set in motion a series of events that threaten to rock Hanna's orderly life, including her encounter with Ozren Karamen, the young librarian who risked his life to save the book. As meticulously researched as all of Brooks' previous work, People of the Book is a gripping and moving novel about war, art, love and survival. |
Orange Prize 2008
The Orange Prize is awarded to the best novel of the year written in English by a woman.
| The Road Home |
Rose Tremain |
$32.95 |
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'On the coach, Lev chose a seat near the back and he sat huddled against the window, staring out at the land he was leaving...' Lev is on his way to Britain to seek work, so that he can send money back to Eastern Europe to support his mother and little daughter.
Readers will become totally involved with his story, as he struggles with the mysterious rituals of 'Englishness', and the fashions and fads of the London scene. We see the road Lev travels through Lev's eyes, and we share his dilemmas: the intimacy of his friendships, old and new; his joys and sufferings; his aspirations and his hopes of finding his way home, wherever home may be. |
Book of the Year (NSW Premier's Literary Awards) 2008
The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards were established by then Premier Neville Wran in 1979 to honour distinguished achievement by Australian writers. The Awards are announced during the Sydney Writers' Festival.
| The Lost Dog |
Michelle de Kretser |
$35.00 |
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This is a mystery and a love story, and is set in present day Australia and mid-twentieth century India. It is a triumph of storytelling which loops back and forth in time to take the reader on a spellbinding journey into worlds far removed from the present tragedy. With its atmosphere of menace and an acute sense of the unexplained, it illuminates the collision of the wild and the civilised, modernity and the past, home and exile. An unusual and interesting read. |
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction 2008
Part of the NSW Premier's Awards, which were established by the then Premier Neville Wran in 1979 to honour achievement by Australian Writers
| The Lost Dog |
Michelle de Kretser |
$35.00 |
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This is a mystery and a love story, and is set in present day Australia and mid-twentieth century India. It is a triumph of storytelling which loops back and forth in time to take the reader on a spellbinding journey into worlds far removed from the present tragedy. With its atmosphere of menace and an acute sense of the unexplained, it illuminates the collision of the wild and the civilised, modernity and the past, home and exile. An unusual and interesting read. |
Pulitzer Prize (Fiction) 2008
For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.
| The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao |
Junot Diaz |
$32.95 |
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The long-awaited first novel from one of today’s most original and electrifying literary voices.
Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican family in New Jersey, he’s sweet but disastrously overweight. He dreams of becoming the next J. R. R. Tolkien and he keeps falling hopelessly in love. Poor Oscar may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukú - the ancient curse that has haunted his family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, violent accidents and, above all, ill-starred love.
With dazzling energy and insight Díaz immerses us in the tumultuous lives of Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, their beautiful mother Belicia, and in the family’s uproarious journey from the Dominican Republic to the US and back.
Rendered with uncommon warmth and humour, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents an astonishing vision of the endless human capacity to persevere - and to risk it all - in the name of love. A literary triumph, this novel confirms Junot Díaz as one of the funniest, warmest and most exciting writers of our time.
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Costa First Novel Award Winner 2007
| What Was Lost |
Catherine O'Flynn |
$24.95 |
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This debut novel explores bereavement and loneliness, and has just the right mix of humour and pathos. Set during the 1980s in midlands England, Kate Meaney is busy being a junior detective, observing the comings and goings of the shoppers in a new sprawling shopping centre. When she disappears, her friend Adrian, is under suspicion. Fourteen years later Adrian’s sister Lisa is working at the shopping centre in a dead-end job. Befriending a security guard, the two bored and lonely, develop a friendship over their mutual interest in a little girl they keep glimpsing in the security cameras. The pair then become detectives themselves to investigate what these sightings mean. A fantastic first novel, and one that has been heaped with praise, including several award nominations and the title of Costa First Novel Award for 2007. |
Costa Book of the Year Award 2007
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Alfred Day wanted his war. In its turmoil he found his proper purpose as the tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber; he found the wild, dark fellowship of his crew, and - most extraordinary of all - he found Joyce, a woman to love. But that's all gone now - the war took it away. Maybe it took him, too.
Now in 1949, employed as an extra in a war film that echoes his real experience, Day begins to recall what he would rather forget... |
Man Booker Prize 2007
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction represents the very best of contemporary fiction. One of the world's most distinctive awards, and one of incomparable influence, it continues to be the pinnacle for every fiction writer. Established by Booker plc in 1968, the prize aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or Republic of Ireland. The Man Booker judges are selected from the country's finest critics, writers and academics to maintain the consistent excellence of the prize. The winner receives £50,000 and both the winner and the shortlisted authors are guaranteed a worldwide audience and a dramatic increase in book sales.
| The Gathering |
Anne Enright |
$32.95 |
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The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that certainly helped - it was what happened to him as a boy in his grandmother's house, in the winter of 1968. His sister Veronica was there then, as she is now: keeping the dead man company, just for another little while.
THE GATHERING is a family epic, condensed and clarified through the remarkable lens of Anne Enright's unblinking eye. It is also a sexual history: tracing the line of hurt and redemption through three generations - starting with the grandmother, Ada Merriman - showing how memories warp and family secrets fester. This is a novel about love and disappointment, about thwarted lust and limitless desire, and how our fate is written in the body, not in the stars.
THE GATHERING sends fresh blood through the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. As in all Anne Enright's work, fiction and non-fiction, this is a book of daring, wit and insight: her distinctive intelligence twisting the world a fraction, and giving it back to us in a new and unforgettable light. |
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