Newsletter: February 2009

 
January's the time when people reflect and look back at their achievements and disappointments over the last year, and the publishing industry is no different. It was revealed that the two most popular global authors, according to analysis of the 2008 international fiction bestsellers published by book trade magazines, are Khaled Hosseini and Ken Follett. They were the only two writers to have books in the top ten bestseller charts in seven of the nine countries where data was captured, and were followed by Stieg Larsson and John Grisham.

UK charity Booktrust conducted its own round-up of 'book of the year' recommendations from newspaper critics, and concluded that Joseph O'Neill's Netherland - described as 'a great American novel' - was the critics' choice for 2008. The most popular non-fiction among the critics was Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder, a study of late-eighteenth-century scientists.

Now let's turn to literary prizes. All the headlines this month went to Sebastian Barry who won the £25,000 Costa Book of the Year award for his novel The Secret Scripture. But the critical comments made by Matthew Parris, chair of the judges, which seemed both 'to giveth and taketh away', attracted almost as many column inches as the book itself. Sebastian Barry seems to have risen above it all, and quite right too.

Meanwhile Jen Hadfield won this year's coveted TS Eliot Prize for her poetry collection, Nigh-No-Place. The Shetland-based writer won £15,000, and lots of kudos.

The six books shortlisted for this year's Warwick Prize for Writing have been announced, with non-fiction dominating the line-up:

Lisa Appignanesi, Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800
Francisco Goldman, The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed Bishop Gerardi?
Stuart A Kauffman, Reinventing the Sacred
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
Enrique Vila-Matas (translator: Jonathan Dunne), Montano's Malady.

The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced on 24 February 2009 at the University of Warwick.

Those of you interested in the often-maligned genre of fantasy writing will be interested to know that a new award has been created to celebrate some of the very best, and in the process to honour the late fantasy novelist David Gemmell, who died in 2006. The David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy will be presented for the first time this year to recognise the best novel published in 2008. Readers can now vote for their favourite by visiting the award website.
 
Another vote, of sorts, likely to be taking place soon will be to decide the next Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. The current incumbent, Christopher Ricks, comes to the end of his tenure in May this year. Carol Ann Duffy, Andrew Motion, Simon Armitage, Jon Stallworthy, JH Prynne, Les Murray, Jorie Graham and Fleur Adcock are among the names allegedly being tipped. It's not a public vote this one though. Candidates have to be nominated by at least twelve Oxford graduates by 4pm on 29th April. Then, in the event of more than one candidate coming forward, there'll be a vote on 16th May.

January has also, unfortunately, been notable for the deaths of several great writers. The great American novelist John Updike, best known for his Rabbit series, died of lung cancer, aged 76.

The novelist, playwright and former barrister John Mortimer, creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, died after a prolonged illness.

And poet Mick Imlah died after a battle with motor neurone disease. Imlah, aged 52, had enjoyed recent success with The Lost Leader, winning the 2008 Forward Prize for best collection, and was shortlisted for this year's TS Eliot Prize.

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