After 50 years, the prize has been scrapped. How did it change Britain’s literary landscape? And what happened at the awards when Margaret Drabble was seated next to Theresa May?Margaret Drabble was a bright young star with five novels to her name in 1971, when she was talked into joining her old friend JB Priestley on the judging panel for a new book prize. “Jack told me that I should spend the fee (which came in wine) by choosing some very nice half-bottles to drink by myself, which I did,” she recalls.Drabble argued for a biography of the playwright Henrik Ibsen, Priestley was keen on a novel by Gerda Charles, and their fellow judge, the critic Anthony Thwaite, championed a poetry collection by Geoffrey Hill. The glory of the new, brewery-sponsored awards was that all three could have prizes, so it all went swimmingly, with none of the squabbles that had already begun to bedevil the Booker, launched two years earlier. These arguments had included one over the literary quality of a certain Margaret Drabble, who (according to Booker judge Dame Rebecca West) would insist on lowering the tone by writing about the washing-up. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2022-06-23 05:00:38 UTC ]
The poet, whose acceptance speech will also be released on Monday, will publish Winter Recipes from the Collective in 2021Nobel laureate Louise Glück is set to publish her first poetry collection in seven years in 2021 – her first since becoming the 16th female winner of the literature... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-12-07 11:00:36 UTC ]
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The Costa Book Awards, inaugurated in 1971, are a set of annual literary awards, which recognize and honor British and Irish writers of the English language. The Award comes with £5,000, and the winner from each category will be announced on January 4th. This year, Evan Boland’s posthumous... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-25 16:01:53 UTC ]
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Twenty writers from the United Kingdom and Ireland have been chosen from an initial pool of 708 Costa Book Award entries. The post The Costa Book Awards Program Announces Its 2020 Shortlists appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-11-25 14:14:19 UTC ]
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Susanna Clarke, Julian Barnes and Meg Rossoff are joined by 10 debut authors in the shortlists for this year's Costa Book Awards. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-24 05:20:33 UTC ]
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Portfolio buys a business book from a fashion brand founder, Paul Tran pens a poetry collection for Penguin, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-06 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Bernardine Evaristo will chair the judging panel for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-20 13:08:29 UTC ]
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This has been an exciting month for Kaveh Akbar. Earlier this month, the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf was named poetry editor of The Nation, a glittering position once held by writers like Langston Hughes, Anne Sexton, and William B. Yeats. There’s much to look forward to from Akbar,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-09-29 14:00:33 UTC ]
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Trapeze has acquired a new poetry collection from Nikita Gill, titled Where Hope Comes From, written in response to the global crisis. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-17 15:46:00 UTC ]
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The International Booker Prize has revealed its judging panel for next year's award, to be chaired by cultural historian and novelist Lucy Hughes-Hallett. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-06 15:40:24 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood is to narrate the audiobook her new poetry collection, Dearly, which publishes simultaneously with the print edition on 10th November. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-04 22:25:53 UTC ]
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Lana Del Rey is releasing her forthcoming poetry collection, Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, on Tuesday, July 28 in digital form. In case you prefer your celebrity poetry spoken aloud, though, she has also recorded an audio version of the book, which will be released on vinyl, CD,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-07-24 16:04:22 UTC ]
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The judging panel has been announced for this year's Royal Society Science Book Prize, featuring professor Anne Osbourn as the chair of judges. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-20 18:41:17 UTC ]
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Will browsing be allowed, or will we have to judge a book by its cover? With Waterstones and some indie shops set to open on 15 June, Alison Flood finds out what the plan isMelissa Davies had planned to fulfil a lifelong dream and open her independent bookshop, Pigeon Books, in Southsea, at the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-12 06:00:14 UTC ]
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Costa Coffee has appointed Amanda Johnson as the new director of the Costa Book Awards, succeeding Bud McLintock, who stepped down from the role after 25 years in February. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-05-31 13:23:03 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Natalia Lomaia Left: Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal in Normal People (2020) / Courtesy of IMDB Sally Rooney’s 2018 novel is a meticulous observation, or even a study, of how one human being can have immense, intense power over another.... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-04-23 13:18:03 UTC ]
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Among the big books that sold this week are a true crime tale by a rural doctor, a new novel by three-time Edgar winner T. Jefferson Parker, and a poetry collection by a Stranger Things cast member. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-03-27 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Booker shortlisted author and former Blackwell's bookseller Daisy Johnson has joined the judging panel for the Vintage Independent Bookseller of the Year Award 2020. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-27 22:21:00 UTC ]
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Roger Robinson has won the £25,000 T S Eliot Prize for his "searing" poetry collection A Portable Paradise (Peepal Tree Press). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-13 13:53:02 UTC ]
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TV presenter and children's author Dermot O'Leary will join Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon and children's book consultant Jake Hope on the judging panel of Oscar’s Book Prize for 2020. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-13 06:24:18 UTC ]
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Sara Collins has won the Costa First Novel Award for her gothic romance, The Confessions of Frannie Langton (Viking), in a stellar year for début authors after three out of the five award categories were won by first-time writers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-06 21:35:49 UTC ]
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