Newsletter: December 2007

Greetings from the UK, where a couple of weeks ago the allegedly controversial film of Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane opened in cinemas. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't judge, but the reviews seem to have been quite good. The next big adaptation is The Golden Compass, a £90 million version of Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights. On it's release it also generated some controversy, but only in America. If it goes down well, expect the next two boks in the His Dark Materials trilogy to get similar treatment.

Away from the movies now, and there's been afair bit of activity on the literary prize front, though not all of it will benefit publishers hoping to sell extra books before Christmas. Whose idea was it to reveal the winners in January?

Anyway, first off, Sarah Hall has won the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Award for her third novel, The Carhullan Army. Having heard her read from it at an event lately, I can't wait to get my copy, and hopefully, in the ever-busy run-up to Christmas, lots of other people will now do the same.

The Cost Book Awards have also revealed the shortlists for each of their categories. Up for the first novel Award are A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, Gifted by Nikita Lalwani, What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn and Mosquito by Roma Tearne. Competing for the general novel category are Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett, Day by A.L. Kennedy, Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson, and The Road Home by Rose Tremain. In the Children's Book Award it's between The Bower Bird by Ann Kelley, Crusade by Elizabeth Laird, What I Was by Meg Rosoff and Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick. The poetry collections in contention are The Speed of Dark by Ian Duhig, The Space of Joy by John Fuller, Look! We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra, and Tilt by Jean Sprackland; and the biographies are Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh, Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre, Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore, and Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins. We'll have to wait until January for the category winners though. In the meantime, find out more at the Costa Awards website.

If poetry floats your boat, you'll know that the T.S. Eliot Prize is a fairly reliable indicator of some of the best work in the UK at the moment. Recently the shortlist for this year's award was announced. The following collections are in the running for the £15,000 prize are: The Speed of Dark by Ian Duhig, Hawks and Doves by Alan Gillis, Pessimism for Beginners by Sophie Hannah, The Meanest Flower by Mimi Khalvati, Public Dreams by Frances Leviston, The Pomegranates of Kandahar by Sarah Maguire, A Book of Lives by Edwin Morgan, The Drowned Book by Sean O'Brien, Common Prayer by Fiona Sampson, and Black Moon by Matthew Sweeney. Again, alas, we'll have to wait until January to find out who scoops the award. You can find out more about the prize at the PBS website.

The good news is that we don't have to wait quite so long to find out who'll win this year's Guardian First Book Award, which will be decided later this month. The books in contention are A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, God's Architect by Rosemary Hill, Children of the Revolution by Dinaw Mengestu, and What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. Read more about the awards on The Guardian website.

So, whether you're off to the cinema to watch one of those literary adaptations, or whether you're hoping for a book or two to unwrap on Christmas Day, best wishes for the festive period from everyone at EnCompass.

Susan Tranter

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