Newsletter: November 2005

Book news has been all about prizes and prize winners in the UK recently. Last month John Banville surprised everyone by taking the Man Booker Prize from under the noses of the favourites Julian Barnes and Kazuo Ishiguro. It was poetic justice for Banville, who was last shortlisted for his novel The Book of Evidence in 1989 - the year the prize went to Ishiguro for The Remains of the Day. Winning the prize has already dramatically affected sales of his novel, The Sea.

It was also announced in October that UK playwright Harold Pinter - best known for his dramatic works The Caretaker and The Birthday Party - had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Pinter, who claimed to be more surprised than anyone, has recently been an active anti-war campaigner, and it was thought that this element of his work was reflected in the judges' decision.

We've had our fair share of prizewinners on EnCompass too. Last month Paul Farley won the Forward best single poem award for 'Liverpool Disappears for a Billionth of a Second'. A few weeks previously Paul had been interviewed by EnCompass visitors, and you can read his answers to their questions by clicking on Author Interviews. Incidentally, our latest interview was conducted by young readers from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, who grilled author Matt Whyman (virtually, of course) about his book The Wild.

EnCompass also gives you the chance to make some awards of your own - in the form of a star rating on the book reviews you submit. The ones that receive 'five star' reviews appear on a chart on the home page. Please do keep your reviews coming - I always prefer to hear from a reader who's actually read the book, rather than just reading the marketing blurb on the back, don't you?

And a final quick mention for a topic on our discussion boards - this month I'm looking for suggestions for genuinely life-changing books. Have you read anything which altered the way you lived your life? Or is the whole 'life-changing' thing just a publishers' cliche? Go to our discussion boards to contribute.

Best wishes,

Susan

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