Thursday, 15 September 2016

Stories & Shout Outs #11


A whole swath of shortlists have been buzzing around the bookish world lately.

Some have got me bibliograpically excited but some have left me scratching my head.

Kim @Reading Matters alerted me to the Canadian literary award - The Giller Prize. It has been around for twenty years and recognizes 'excellence in Canadian fiction'.

For a full rundown on the longlist and the history of Kim's shadow reading of  the Giller longlist, click on her link above.

The shortlist will be announced at the end of this month and the winner will be declared in November. But for now, here's the longlist...


13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin

Pillow by Andrew Battershill

Stranger by David Bergen
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
The Party Wall by Catherine Leroux, translated by Lazer Lederhendler
The Two of Us by Kathy Page
Death Valley by Susan Perly
Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush by Kerry Lee Powell
By Gaslight by Steven Price
The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall


The Man Booker shortlist is now out there too! The (wo)man booker shadow panel read through the longlist and prepared their own thoughts about what should have been shortlisted and why. The various posts and links to the panel are here @Dolce Bellezza

The official list, I confess, has me scratching my head. I really thought The North Water was a contender for taking out the big prize this year. I do at least have Do No Say We Have Nothing on my TBR pile, so I can read one of the books on both of these lists so far.



Paul Beatty (US) - The Sellout
Deborah Levy (UK) - Hot Milk
Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) - His Bloody Project
Ottessa Moshfegh (US) – Eileen
David Szalay (Canada-UK) - All That Man Is

Meanwhile the Royal Society Science Prize has a shortlist that I can get very excited about. Especially as I've read one of the contenders (Cure), I'm a third of the way through another (The Invention of Nature) and have my eyes on a third (The Gene).
The Gene Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Hunt for Vulcan Thomas Levenson
WINNER - The Invention of Nature Andrea Wulf
The Most Perfect Thing Tim Birkhead
The Planet Remade Oliver Morton

Finally, closer to home, we have the shortlist for this year's Queensland Literary Awards. They have an incredible number of categories to work through, so grab a cuppa and settle back to check out the wonderful diversity that makes up Australian writing in 2016.

Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance

Nadia Buick & Madeleine King Remotely Fashionable: A Story of Subtropical Style 
Matthew Condon All Fall Down 
Elspeth Muir Wasted
P. J. Parker The Long Goodbye
WINNER - Lesley and Tammy Williams Not Just Black and White

The University of Queensland Fiction Book Award

Tony Birch Ghost River
WINNER - Georgia Blain Between a Wolf and a Dog
Patrick Holland One
Charlotte Wood The Natural Way of Things

The University of Queensland Non-fiction Book Award

Madeline Gleeson Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru
Stan Grant Talking to My Country
Drusilla Modjeska Second Half First
Tim Winton Island Home
WINNER - Fiona Wright Small Acts of Disappearance: Essays on Hunger

Griffith University Young Adult Book Award

Will Kostakis The Sidekicks
WINNER - David Metzenthen Dreaming the Enemy
Glenda Millard The Stars at Oktober Bend
Claire Zorn One Would Think the Deep

Griffith University Children's Book Award

Bob Graham How the Sun Got to Coco's House  (R)
Libby Hathorn; illustrator: Gaye Chapman Incredibilia
WINNER - Julie Hunt; illustrator:Dale Newman KidGlovz
Chris McKimmie Me, Teddy

University of Southern Queensland History Book Award

Vicken Babkenian and Peter Stanley Armenia, Australia and the Great War
Stuart Macintyre Australia's Boldest Experiment: War and reconstruction in the 1940s
WINNER - Julia Martinez and Adrian Vickers The Pearl Frontier: Indonesian Labor and Indigenous Encounters in Australia's Northern Trading Network
Jeff Maynard The Unseen Anzac
John Newton The Oldest Foods on Earth: A history of Australian native foods with recipes
Garry Wotherspoon Gay Sydney: A History

University of Southern Queensland Australian Short Story Collection - Steele Rudd Award

Sonja Dechian An Astronaut's Life
Julie Koh Portable Curiosities
WINNER - Fiona McFarlane The High Places

State Library of Queensland Poetry Collection – Judith Wright Calanthe Award

Joel Deane Year of the Wasp
Liam Ferney Content
Sarah Holland-Batt The Hazards
WINNER - David Musgrave Anatomy of Voice
Chloe Wilson Not Fox Nor Axe

Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Awards

WINNER - Emily Craven
Sam George-Allen
Anna Jacobson
WINNER - Michelle Law
Andrew McMillen

Unpublished Indigenous Writer - David Unaipon Award

WINNER - Paul Collis Dancing Home
B.A. Quakawoot The Song of Jessica Perkins
Yvonne Weldon 67 Days

Emerging Queensland Writer – Manuscript Award

H.E. Crampton for The Boatman
Laura Elvery for The Elements

Which book, from all of the above, should I read next?

10 comments:

  1. Hi Brona! I'd be really interested in reading Vicken Babkenian and Peter Stanley Armenia, Australia and the Great War. I recently re-read a young adult book, based on a true story of a young woman who survived the forced evacuation of the Armenians fom Turkey - Road From Home by David Kheridian, who was the woman's son born after she went to America and married. I didn't know anything about this event until I'd read the book.

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    1. It's new to me too Carol...and now you've piqued my interest :-)

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  2. So much deliciousness there! I haven't heard of any of the Canadian titles sadly. The QLD list has lots and lots of possibilities.

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    1. And I hope you spotted one of the familiar titles on the Science Prize shortlist :-)

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  3. Anonymous15/9/16

    Great list of new books....!
    Making list of 20 classics for 2017
    now time for a list 20 NEW books 2017.
    Haven't forgotten AusReadingMonth...looking for book.
    But which one? I can use some of your suggestions in this post! Thx

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    1. I'm planning on reading a Ruth Park novel called Swords and Crowds and Rings...plus a few others :-D

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    2. Anonymous16/9/16

      Ruth Park is great..wonderful sharp prose.
      Her journalistic training gave her the powers of observation. She saw things a mere mortal would miss.
      Still working on lists for 2017...
      Relax day after my Edgar Allan Poe marathon!

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  4. Anonymous18/9/16

    Still thinking about this post. Why not host a non-fiction challenge in 2017?
    I would sign up !

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    Replies
    1. Doing Dewey already does Non Fiction Friday, with a monthly readalong and Non-Fiction November.

      Part of my guilt/regret is how little I've participated this year.

      Although maybe my 2017 challenge could be about actually finishing all those half-read non-fiction books by my bed!

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  5. Well, 'anonymous' is back...and STILL using this great reference post for Australian books!
    Starting: Not Just Black and White this morning by Lesley and Tammy Williams!

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