Sean Michaels‘ debut novel US CONDUCTORS won Canada’s Giller Prize Monday night, surpassing heavy favorite Miriam Toews and becoming only the second debut novelist to win the Giller. The book was by Random House Canada and in the US by Tin House Books. Michaels receives $100,000 (CA) as part of the expanded prize purse announced earlier this year. In the UK, Waterstones named their eight candidates for “book of the year”: Everyday Sexism, by Laura Bates The Miniaturist, by Jessie Burton The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Richard Flanagan Persiana: Recipes from the Middle East & Beyond, by Sabrina Ghayour Once […]
Best of
Amazon Picks Top Books, Naming Ng’s “Sleeper” Novel As Top Pick
Amazon published their lists of best books of the year, including their top 100 titles, and 10 favorites, plus “editor’s picks” across 20 categories. Hachette Book Group lands just four titles on Amazon’s top 100, and all four are the only hardcovers offered at full retail price, without any discount. In order, they are: Those Who Wish Me Dead, by Michael Koryta (29); To Rise Again at a Decent Hour: A Novel, by Joshua Ferris (54); The Fever, by Megan Abbott (96); and The Farm, by Tom Rob Smith (97). Their pick for “book of the year” is Celeste Ng’s novel. 1. Everything I Never Told […]
Hudson Booksellers Picks Doerr, and More
Hudson Booksellers released their annual lists of top books, picking Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See as their “book of the year.” Rounding out their top 10 for fiction are: Under the Wide and Starry Sky, Nancy Horan Wolf in White, John Darnielle Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood Bird Box, Josh Malerman The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters The Crane Wife, Patrick Ness Still Life with Bread Crumbs, Anna Quindlen The Martian, Andrew Weir Their other top picks are: Nonfiction New Life, No Instructions, Gail Caldwell Internal Medicine, Terrence Holt The Human Age, Diane Ackerman […]
PW’s Top 10 Books
PW published their annual list of the 10 best books of the year, a selection that includes three works in translation: Nonfiction On Immunity: An Inoculation, Eula Biss (Graywolf) Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David, Lawrence Wright (Knopf) Limonov, Emmanuel Carrère, trans. by John Lambert (Farrar, Straus) The Empathy Exams, Leslie Jamison (Graywolf) Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free Héctor Tobar (Farrar, Straus) Fiction The Corpse Exhibition, Hassan Blasim, trans. by Jonathan Wright (Penguin) Those Who Leave and Those Who […]
Advance Look: NYT’s Top 10 Picture Books for 2014, and Goodread’s It Book Search
The New York Times Book Review announced its list of the year’s 10 Best Illustrated Children’s Books, though they will not be featured in print until the November 19 issue. Their picks are: Draw!, written and illustrated by Raul Colon (Simon & Schuster) Shackleton’s Journey, written and illustrated by William Grill (Flying Eye Books) The Promise, written by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Laura Carlin (Candlewick Press) Where’s Mommy?, written by Beverly Donofrio, illustrated by Barbara McClintock (Schwartz & Wade) Haiti, My Country, written by Haitian schoolchildren, illustrated by Roge (Fifth House Publishers) Time for Bed, Fred, written and illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail […]
An Early Start to the “Best of” Lists
It’s hard to believe, but the “best books of 2014” lists have already started. Perhaps looking to get the jump on PW — which always likes to go early at the beginning of November — Library Journal has posted their reviewers’ top 10, along with “more of the best” and various focused lists. (But they are saving the annotated printed version for their December issue.) And Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo has also made their choices already. LJ‘s top ten: An Untamed State, Roxane Gay No Place To Hide, Glenn Greenwald Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World […]