Man Booker List Announced

The 2011 Man Booker longlist was announced yesterday. This is a prestigious annual prize given to a full-length novel, written by a citizen of the Commonwealth of England or the Republic of Ireland and published in the United Kingdom for the first time in the year of the prize.

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that the longlist for the prize gives us a list of some of the best books to have been published in the past year, including in this case the works of four first time novelists. New work, new life—always exciting. The bad news is that many of the works are not yet available in the United States. The Los Angeles Times published the full list including predicted dates of when you might find them on American bookshelves.

Philip Roth wins the Man Booker International Prize

It was announced today that Philip Roth has won the International Man Booker Prize. This is a biannual prize given to a writer for their body of work as opposed to the annual Booker Prize given for a single book.

Philip Roth is the author of many many books including Pulitzer Prize winning American Pastoral. Some of his other famous novels are Portnoy's Complaint, Goodbye, Columbus, and the series of novels featuring favorite fictional narrator Nathan Zuckerman (American Pastoral was one of these). Roth was one of only three writers to have his works canonized in their lifetime by the Library of America series. And he's not stopping yet, his latest book Nemesis was published just last year.

Pulitzer Prize Winners have been announced....

The winners of the 2011 Pulitzer prize were announced earlier this week and here is a short list of the major categories:

FICTION: "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan
HISTORY: "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery" by Eric Foner 
GENERAL NONFICTION: "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" by Siddhartha Mukherjee 
DRAMA: "Clybourne Park" by Bruce Norris
BIOGRAPHY: "Washington: A Life" by Ron Chernow  

And last but certainly not least:

POETRY: "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems" by Kay Ryan.
Yes. The same Kay Ryan who will be coming to read at UMass Lowell next Tuesday, April 26, 7 pm, O'Leary Library, 61 Wilder St. This event promises to be not only free, but awesome so don't miss it. And while you're there, make sure to congratulate her!

A full list of winners is available on the Pulitzer Prize website.

Man Booker International Prize announces finalists for 2011

Three Americans are in the mix for the U.K. based Man Booker International Prize this year: Anne Tyler, Philip Roth and Marilynne Robinson. Like the Nobel Prize in Literature, this Booker International Prize is given out for an author's body of work not for any one novel. A complete list of finalists is available on the official website.