Elizabeth Gregory's Blog

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

The six novels still in the running for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction have been announced. There is no place on the list for Salman Rushdie, winner of Best of Booker and the Booker of Bookers, but two debut novelists have made the chosen few. The full shortlist is:

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Voting has finished now in this year's Richard and Judy Summer Read, and readers have chosen Linwood Barclay's No Time For Goodbye as their favourite book.

Readers were able to cast their vote via the Richard and Judy website, or on special cards distributed through bookshops and libraries.

The top three were:

1. No Time for Goodbye, Linwood Barclay (Orion)

2. The Outcast, Sadie Jones (Vintage)

3. East of the Sun, Julia Gregson (Orion)

All eight shortlisted titles are winners though: they are all currently in the best-seller charts.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Major publishers are due to start using age-banding guides on children's books from this Autumn - a move opposed by many authors. The petition at www.notoagebanding.org has now been signed by over 3000 people, including Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson, Quentin Blake, Anne Fine, Michael Rosen and now JK Rowling.

Many writers feel the age-banding is a bad idea as it may discourage children from reading, as books they may wish to read might be "too young" or "too old" for them.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Last December, JK Rowling went some way to filling the void left by Harry Potter by unveiling some handmade copies of a new work called The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of five fairy stories illustrated by Rowling herself.

The collection is now to be widely available from December 4th 2008, with illustrations reproduced from the original. The most interesting aspect of the new book for Harry fans will be the commentary (including footnotes) by Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, who brings his own perspective to the collection.

The book will be available as a standard edition, or as a special limited-edition collector's copy with ten new illustrations, likely to be priced at £50.

Both are available for pre-order from Amazon.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

The results from the Best of Booker Award were announced on Friday, and there was no real surprise when Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children was revealed to be the most popular choice.

The novel has shown no signs of fading in popularity since its publication in 1981: Rushdie's novel was also the winner of the Booker of Bookers in 1993. This year's award was slightly different in that readers chose the winner, albeit from a rather limited shortlist of six titles. Midnight's Children secured 36% of the vote, making it a clear winner.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Whether you think their influence is healthy or not, there's no disputing the enormous power of TV presenters Richard and Judy over the book-buying public.

As in previous years, they have produced a list of titles they recommend we read this summer:

The Outcast by Sadie Jones

No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

East of the Sun by Julia Gregson

Down River by John Hart

The Pirate's Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller

Addition by Toni Jordan

The Resurrectionist by James Bradley

The first two books on the list are already jostling for pole position in the best-seller charts, with Sadie Jones currently winning out.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Websites offering readers the chance to vote for their favourite books seem to be flavour of the month at the moment: every couple of months yet another novel is proclaimed by some website or other as the nation's favourite book.

Poll the People is a little more interesting: wider in scope, this site encourages you to vote not just for your favourite read, but in many categories including best film and best album. The site also allows you to have your say on other people's choices, and add comments or reviews of your own.

Current favourite, perhaps unsurprisingly, is J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, followed by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.

Voice your own opinions at the Poll the People website.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

The winner of The Best of Booker, a prize marking the 40th birthday of the Man Booker Prize, will be announced on July 10th, and will be chosen by the reading public from a list of six specially selected from all previous winners. The final six, as chosen by Victoria Glendinning, Mariella Frostrup and John Mullan are:

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (1981)

JM Coetzee's Disgrace (1999)

JG Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)

Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist (1974)

Pat Barker's The Ghost Road (1995)

Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda (1988)

Salman Rushdie is the favourite to win, having already won The Booker of Bookers which marked the prize's 25th anniversary. You have until July 8th to vote for your favourite, at the Man Booker website.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

The 21st Hay Festival, sponsored by The Guardian, will run from Thursday 22nd May to Sunday 1st June, and will squeeze 477 events into its 11-day run.

Highlights look set to include appearances from literary giants Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Will Self, Hanif Kureshi, Louis de Bernieres and Fay Weldon. Poetry fans will be well-served with readings from Lemn Sissay, Roger McGough and Brian Patten.

If your tastes tend towards non-fiction, Jimmy Carter will be talking about conflict resolution and human rights, and there will be contributions from gardener Monty Don, musician Jools Holland and car botherer Jeremy Clarkson.

Parents will be pleased to know there will be plenty going on to keep the kids entertained, with talks by Judith Kerr, author of The Tiger who Came to Tea, and Julia Donaldson, creator of The Gruffalo.

Full details available from the Hay website.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

The Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction is now in its thirteenth year, and this year's strong shortlist suggests that there are more talented women writing than ever before. This year's list is also notable for including three debut novelists: Patricia Wood, Sadie Jones and Heather O'Neill.

The award was set up in 1996, and awards an annual prize of £30,000 to the best work of fiction written by a woman. The prize is international, rewarding novels written in English and published in the UK, but not necessarily by British writers - two of this year's list, Nancy Huston and Heather O'Neill, are Canadian.

Full Shortlist

Fault Lines by Nancy Huston

The Outcast by Sadie Jones

When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill

The Road Home by Rose Tremain

Lottery by Patricia Wood

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Lists of favourite writers or books are a tricky thing, inevitably subjective and bound to omit works which other people would find essential. This week's list, published in the Books section of The Times, was created by Marcel Berlins, crime fiction reviewer for the paper, and is therefore the opinion of just one man. The question is, do you agree with his choices? His top five was as follows:

1. Patricia Highsmith

2. Georges Simenon

3. Agatha Christie

4. Raymond Chandler

5. Elmore Leonard

All undeniably great writers. But where are the more recent champions of the crime novel? Ian Rankin, creator of Rebus, just scrapes into the Top Ten at number 9, while the phenomenally successful Patricia Cornwell languishes at number 38. There is no place for either Kathy Reichs or Karin Slaughter, and the prolific Val McDermid manages number 28. No Jack Reacher? James Ellroy - creator of L.A. Confidential - at number 20?

Crime novels really do seem to be flavour of the month at the moment, and whilst we should rightfully acknowledge the pioneers of the genre, it seems unreasonable to overlook some of the modern masters. Check out the full list and have your say at The Times website.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Not too many surprises at this year's Nibbies - so called because the winners receive a trophy in the shape of a pen nib - with Ian McEwan receiving two major awards for his recent novella On Chesil Beach. This short but moving tale scooped both the Galaxy Book of the Year Award and The Reader's Digest Author of the Year prize.

Richard & Judy's Best Read of the Year Award - the winning of which seems a licence to print money - was won by Khaled Hosseini for A Thousand Splendid Suns, the already immensely successful follow-up to The Kite Runner.

Controversy was avoided when Katie Price failed to win the WHSmith Children's Book of the Year - instead the prize went to Francesca Simon for Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman.

A full list of winners is available at the Publishing News website.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

One in 10 British people surveyed by the poll admitted to having cheated at school by watching film adaptations of classic novels rather than actually reading the book itself.

The survey of more than 2000 people suggested that Londoners are the worst culprits, with 16% admitting this time-saving tactic. Perhaps the only surprise in these figures for British teachers will be that the numbers are not higher!

The poll also revealed that the favourite classic book for women is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, whereas classic of choice for men is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

The nominees for the prestigious Galaxy British Books Awards - the "Oscars" of the British book industry - have been announced. The awards, known as the "Nibbies" as winners receive a statuette in the shape of a pen nib, will be handed out by Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan on April 9th.

Katie Price - Best Children's Book?

The nominee lists contain few surprises - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Khaled Hosseini, Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan and David Peace up for Reader's Digest Author of the Year, for example - but the name that has provoked the most comment is that of Katie Price, better known as former glamour model Jordan. She is listed for the WH Smith Children's Book of the Year Award for My Pony Care Book, despite admitting using the services of a ghost writer to help her produce the book. Response to this has been mixed, with many feeling her inclusion on a prestigious list including Michael Morpurgo and Jacqueline Wilson is nothing but an insult, whilst a few have defended the book and said it has every right to be on the list.

Whatever happens, all the nominees will receive plenty of publicity in the coming weeks, suggesting that even those who don't win will feel the benefit on increased book sales.

British Book Awards Shortlists in Full

Check out the full list of nominees and cast your vote at the Awards homepage.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

One of the UK's most famous libraries has received funding to allow the public to see its collection of rare manuscript treasures.The Bodleian Library in Oxford is one of Britain's oldest and most beautiful libraries, founded in 1602 and the guardian of many priceless literary works.

Shakespeare First Folio 1623

As a library of legal deposit, the Bodleian by law receives a copy of every book published in every year dating back over the last four centuries - and therefore counts amongst its holdings a copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, printed in 1623. Other delights include a Gutenberg Bible (one of eight surviving copies), original Tolkien drawings and Gustav Holst's score for The Planet Suite.

All these and more will be on display after a redevelopment of the New Bodleian building, made possible thanks to a £5 million donation from Julian Blackwell. The bad news? The collection won't be on show until sometime after 2010: keep an eye on the Bodleian website for more details.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Congratulations to young British writer Jonathan Trigell, who yesterday won the World Book Day "Book to Talk About" award with his brilliant but controversial novel Boy A.

His margin of victory was convincing, as Trigell polled 21% of the total votes, some 7% ahead of the second placed Ishq and Mushq. Trigell's book was originally published in 2004 to rave reviews, and was the winner of the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in that year. The book's current popularity may in part be due to the dramatisation screened by Channel 4 last year to great acclaim.

Trigell's second novel Cham was published last year and he is currently working on his third. Nice to see someone with a Manchester connection doing so well - he completed an MA here in Creative Writing in 2002.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

World Book Day falls on 6th March in the UK, and as part of the celebrations readers have been asked to "Spread the Word" about books worth talking about.

The short-listed choices are:

• Lint, Steve Aylett
• Speaking of Love, Angela Young
• Death of a Murderer, Rupert Thomson
• Before I Die, Jenny Downham
• Boy A, Jonathan Trigell
• Playing with the Moon, Eliza Graham
• Salt & Honey. Candi Miller
• Ishq and Mushq, Priya Basil
• Gods in Alabama, Joshilyn Jackson
• In Cold Daylight, Pauline Rowson

Voting is now closed, but if you've recently enjoyed (or not!) any of these books, you can still post your comments on the World Book Day website.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in April 1969, and will celebrate its 40th birthday by awarding a prize to the novel considered the best overall work to have won the prize in that time.

The Best of Booker winner will be announced in July, and the public will be able to vote for their favourite from a shortlist of six that will be announced by Victoria Glendinning in March.

Salman Rushdie's 1981 winner Midnight's Children is already the favourite to scoop this prestigious new prize - the same novel that won the Booker of Bookers Prize in 1993 to celebrate the 25th anniversary.

Have your say at the Man Booker website, and keep an eye on this page - I'll publish further details of the final six contenders as soon as I get them!

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

As we saw last week in the top ten most borrowed books from UK libraries, fashions come and go - at the moment we seem to be loving crime novels and anything promoted by Richard and Judy!

There are some books, however, that seem forever popular. Here are the top ten most borrowed classic novels, some of which were published over 150 years ago but show no sign of falling out of favour:

Most Borrowed Classic Novels

1. JD Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
2. Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
3. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
4. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
5. Jane Austen, Persuasion
6. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
7. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (a different edition)
8. Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn
9. Agatha Christie, The Hollow
10. Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Figures are now available reflecting the habits of the UK's reading population in 2007 - at least, the habits of those who borrow their books from the library rather than buying from the bookshop. So what were the top ten most borrowed books?

The Top Ten Most Borrowed Books

1. At Risk, Patricia Cornwell (Little, Brown, 2006)
2. The Island, Victoria Hislop (Review, 2006)
3. Judge and Jury, James Patterson & Andrew Gross (Headline, 2006)
4. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (Corgi, 2004)
5. Mary, Mary, James Patterson (Headline, 2005)
6. Journey's End, Josephine Cox (HarperCollins, 2006)
7. My Best Friend's Girl, Dorothy Koomson (Time Warner, 2006)
8. The 5th Horseman, James Patterson & Maxine Paetro (Headline, 2006)
9. The Hard Way, Lee Child (Transworld, 2006)
10. The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (Time Warner, 2006)

So what do these choices say about us? Well, the Richard and Judy effect remains unstoppable, with three of their Book Club choices in the top ten, at numbers 2, 7 and 10. The Da Vinci Code still won't go away, and thrillers have become increasingly popular judging by the success of Cornwell, Patterson (and helpers) and Child.

But it's not all trashy thrillers - next week I'll publish the list of the top ten most borrowed classic authors.

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

What is World Book Day?

World Book Day was designed by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and is celebrated in over 100 countries around the globe. Most countries will this year celebrate World Book Day on April 23rd, but as the focus in the UK is very much on activities based in schools, the date has been moved so that it falls in term time.

How Can I Get Involved?

This year's main event is the chance for children to vote for their favourite animal in literature (mine would be a hard fought battle between Pooh and Paddington Bear), and each school child will receive a £1 Book Token to spend as part payment against any book, or full payment for one of the nine specially produced £1 books. The website will also offer a range of competitions and activities to really enthuse the UK's children with a love of books.

For full details, visit the World Book Day website.

Who is your favourite animal in children's literature? Have your say with our poll and see whether you agree with the results from World Book Day!

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Robert Burns was born on 25th January 1759 in Alloway, and went on to become the much-loved national bard of Scotland. The traditional celebration that has become Burns Night began in 1801, when a group of his friends gathered in Alloway to mark the fifth anniversary of his death. Their meal consisted of haggis as a main course, washed down of course with whisky, a custom that will be lovingly revisited all across Scotland this Friday night.

Address to the Haggis

Should you be planning your own Burns supper, you may wish to address a few words of admiration to your haggis; should this be the case, I include the first two stanzas of Burns' exceedingly handy poem, Address to the Haggis - any more verses than this and your haggis will of course have gone cold.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,

Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!

Aboon them a' ye tak your place,

Painch, tripe, or thairm:

Weel are ye wordy of a grace

As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,

Your hurdies like a distant hill,

Your pin wad help to mend a mill

In time o' need,

While thro' your pores the dews distil

Like amber bead.

However you're celebrating Burns' Night, have a good one!

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

Favourite writers are always a contentious topic: we all have our preferred authors, and wonder at the inexplicable popularity of others. So the Times Books section made a brave move at the start of this year by announcing a list of their top 50 British writers since 1945, based on "style, influence, longevity and sales". The list included 5 poets (two of whom were in the top ten), 35 fiction writers, 4 non-fiction, and a further 6 versatile souls writing across different genres. The top ten was as follows:

1. Philip Larkin
2. George Orwell
3. William Golding
4. Ted Hughes
5. Doris Lessing
6. J.R.R. Tolkien
7. V.S. Naipaul
8. Murial Spark
9. Kingsley Amis
10. Angela Carter

Brave indeed to place a poet at the top of the list, in view of how sales charts are dominated by fiction; interesting also to omit many of the recent writers who have made such an impact on British literature - Jeanette Winterson, Zadie Smith, Alan Hollinghurst and Sebastian Faulks are all missing fron the top 50. Check out the full list at Times online and see what you think!

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

It will come as no surprise that the bestselling book in the UK last year was J.K. Rowling's final instalment of the Harry Potter series. What is surprising is the margin of victory: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold an astonishing 4,079,109 copies, according to figures published in The Times newspaper, over 3 million copies ahead of the second most successful book: all the more remarkable considering this was a hardback with an RRP of £17.99!

Elsewhere in the chart, the influence of The Richard and Judy Bookclub was evident, with a number of their choices selling extremely well and Jed Rubenfeld, Kim Edwards and Kate Morton all appearing in the top ten: such is the power of TV. This is further suggested by the presence in the top ten of cookbooks released to tie in with the television series of Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver.

And who exactly buys enough copies of The Guinness World Records for it to make the top ten consistently every year? I can only think there were an awful lot of these wrapped up under the Christmas tree; thankfully I was not one of the recipients!

Read more about the Richard and Judy effect in Reading for Pleasure.

Top 10 Bestsellers of 2007

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling: 4,079,109
2. The interpretation of Murder, Jed Rubenfeld: 819,426
3. The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards: 701,576
4. Nigella Express, Nigella Lawson: 638,855
5. Anybody Out There, Marian Keyes: 585,026
6. Guinness World Records 2008: 576,643
7. The House at Riverton, Kate Morton: 574,363
8. On the Edge, Richard Hammond: 518,459
9. A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon: 467,836
10. Jamie at Home, Jamie Oliver: 456,954

Posted by Elizabeth Gregory

One of the few advantages of the post-Christmas period of torpor is that the BBC usually wheels out some decent new shows in honour of the New Year. This year's treat is a lavish new adaptation of Jane Austen's first novel Sense and Sensibility, originally published in 1811. A new production by Andrew Davies is always worth a look, as he has been responsible for some of the most enjoyable period dramas of recent years including, most famously, his 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice - who can forget Colin Firth's wet shirt?

His latest series began promisingly, managing to stay faithful to the original text whilst compressing the novel into three hours. Hattie Morahan makes for an engaging Elinor, and Dominic Cooper promises to be a suitably caddish Willoughby. The only controversial note was the addition of a steamy sex scene in the opeing moments, calling some critics to pronounce the whole thing far too raunchy. Watch it again on the BBC's iplayer in the next few days and see what you think.

Keep an eye out for a new series of Jane Austen articles on British/UK fiction over the next few weeks.