Here are a few gems I gleaned from the site. Go to BookList yourself and have a look around. See you can find some more gems. I may have missed something.
1. Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Finalists and Winner announced. This is the book award given out by the National Council of English teachers which “demonstrates a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.” And the winner is: Glory O'Brien's History of the World by A.S. King. If you haven't read it, I can personally recommend it. I understand why a team of English teachers would pick something by AS King as their winner since this gal can write!
2. The 2015 ITW Thriller Awards Announced in July. ITW stands for International Thriller Writers. Their mission is “to provide opportunities for mentoring, education and collegiality among thriller authors and industry professionals; and to grant awards for excellence in the thriller genre.” They have winners in several categories. The YA winner is Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano. I am not familiar with the ITW or with this book but want to look into it. I have many students who really enjoy the thriller genre and are always looking for new books.
3. All the best books: Narrative Nonfiction. Someone took the time to cull through lists of 172 award lists and Best-of-Books lists for 2014. From those they select the books named most often. These three titles (not YA) were listed most often in the Narrative Nonfiction category. I found a similar list for Biographies and memoirs, history, short stories, etc.
- The Empathy Exams by Leslis Jamison #1
- Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
- The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeh Kolbert
Now I doubt I will buy any of these books for my library but I am interested in reading them myself.
4. 2015 Audie Awards were announced in May. Audie Awards go to the best audiobooks of the year in a lot of categories. As you may know I am an audiobook fanatic so it is surprising that I somehow missed the announcement this year. The adult fiction winner is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, the book I am listening to right now. The best children's audiobook was Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. And the best YA audiobook of the year is Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maquire. It just so happens that I am sponsoring a free giveaway right now and winner will receive a copy of the CD-set of Egg and Spoon. Follow this link to sign up to win.
5. The Locus Awards for Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books were announced in June. Another award organization I haven't heard of, nor have a I heard of the winning YA book, Half a King by Joe Abercrombie but you can bet I will look into them. Clariel by Garth Nix was one of the finalists and I really enjoyed that book.
6. The Nebula- Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy award went to Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson. A disturbing look at what if a virus affects many of us and closes down our government. This was not my favorite book I've ever read but I like it when books I have selected win awards. It makes me feel like I have good taste in books. Ha!
7. The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in fiction was awarded to the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning, All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr. It is fun to read this announcement today, even though it was announced over a month ago because I am currently reading (listening) to this book. I get it why this book and author are deemed the best of the best, the writing is amazing.
“History is about studying how, when, and where large numbers of human beings fell under the spell of various myths. But storytelling is about watching individuals operate inside those historical narratives."- Anthony DoerrRemember to sign up for my giveaway, an audio-CD set of the marvelous book, Egg and Spoon. Follow the link here.
Thanks for sharing all of this info (and hosting such a great giveaway)!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I've nominated you for The Liebster Award.
I loved Being Mortal. Maybe it's my age.
ReplyDelete