Canadian author Louise Penny won the 2010 Anthony Award for best novel for her The Brutal Telling. It also won the Agatha earlier this year.

Penny’s new book, Bury Your Dead, continues the Armand Gamache series and has been receiving acclaim. It was starred by all four of the prepub review media, is a People magazine Pick, (the review that called it her best yet) and is on the NYT Hardcover Fiction extended list. The only naysayer so far is Marilyn Stasio, who in her recent NYT BR mystery column, said that a “dubious device undermines the much more interesting central narrative.”

Bury Your Dead: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (Three Pines Mysteries) Louise Penny Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Minotaur Books – (2010-09-28) ISBN / EAN: 0312377045 / 9780312377045

Large Print; Thorndike; available now; 9781410431721; $32.99

The first book in the series, Still Life, won an Anthony for Best First Novel.

Below are the nominees and winners in the full-length novel categories, with information on each author’s next book, where available.

BEST NOVEL

Winner:

Finalists:

• The Last Child, John Hart, (Minotaur Books)
• The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, Charlie Huston, (Ballantine Books)
• The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson, (Knopf); We probably don’t need to tell you that the next book in the series is The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
• The Shanghai Moon, S.J. Rozan (Minotaur Books); the next in the Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Novels, #10 is  On the Line, published in September.

BEST FIRST NOVEL

Winner:

Finalists:

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Winner:

Finalists:

• Bury Me Deep, Megan Abbott, (Simon & Schuster)
• Tower, Ken Bruen and Reed Farrel Coleman, (Busted Flush Press); Bruen’s lastest solo novel, The Devil, was published by Minotaur in August. His 2009 book London Boulevard has been adapted to a movie starring Keira Knightley and Collin Ferrell, scheduled for release on Nov. 26
• Quarry in the Middle, Max Allan Collins, (Hard Case Crime); the 9th in the series, Quarry’s Ex came out in September
• Death and the Lit Chick, G.M. Malliet, (Midnight Ink); the third St. Just Mystery, Death at the Alma Mater came out in January
• Air Time, Hank Phillippi Ryan, (Mira); the next Charlotte McNally title, Drive Time, came out in February

For Best Short Story and Best Critical Nonfiction winners, link here.

Most libraries are still showing the Man Booker prize winner, Finkler’s Question, as being on order. Many are also putting in additional orders as holds mount. Publisher Bloomsbury has ordered a reprint, which is due to arrive 10/22. If you’re planning on ordering more, now is the time to get those orders in.

The book rose to #2 on Amazon sales rankings today (from #10 yesterday) and has since moved down to #4.

The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 1608196119 / 9781608196111

Immediately after the National Book Award finalists were announced, the Twitter World was abuzz that Jonathan Franzen was snubbed by the National Book Awards (some think that’s not a bad thing), which also happens to the the title of  AP’s story (Jonathan Franzen SNUBBED By the National Book Award Committee).

Also on Twitter, St. John’s Knits announces they are partnering with the Daily Beast for National Book Awards After Party (St. John’s Knits is a sponsor of the Daily Beast‘s book coverage, which is the reason a beautifully clad model incongruously pops up in some of their stories). What a concept; could a Vanity Fair NBA party be next?

The NYT “Arts Beat” blog points out that 13 of the 20 finalists are women; the largest group ever.

I am happy to see Lionel Shriver’s So Much for That on the list. Most of the reviewers mischaracterized it as a novel about the cost of health care, but it deals with much deeper issues; deciding to ignore the advice of so-called authorities to follow your own instincts.

Two of the five fiction titles are from small independent presses. They have been below the radar to date and are therefore not owned widely in libraries.

Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson); Kirkus, “Exceptional writing and idiosyncratic characters make this an engaging read”

Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel (Coffee House Press); received a starred review from Booklist

Winners will be announced on Nov. 17.

The list of NBA finalists has just been posted.

FICTION

Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America (Alfred A. Knopf)

Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (McPherson)

Nicole Krauss, Great House (W.W. Norton)

Lionel Shriver, So Much for That (Harper)

Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel (Coffee House Press)

Fiction Judges: Andrei Codrescu, Samuel R. Delany, Sabina Murray,
Joanna Scott, Carolyn See

NONFICTION

Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (Spiegel & Grau/Random House)

John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq (W.W. Norton)

Patti Smith, Just Kids (Ecco/HarperCollins)

Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward (FSG)

Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War (Doubleday)

Nonfiction Judges: Blake Bailey, Marjorie Garber, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Seth Lerer, Sallie Tisdale

POETRY

Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City (Princeton University Press)

Terrance Hayes, Lighthead (Viking Penguin)

James Richardson, By the Numbers (Copper Canyon Press)

C.D. Wright, One with Others (Copper Canyon Press)

Monica Youn, Ignatz (Four Way Books)

Poetry Judges: Rae Armantrout, Cornelius Eady, Linda Gregerson,
Jeffrey McDaniel, Brenda Shaughnessy

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker (Little, Brown)

Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird (Philomel Books/Penguin Young Readers)

Laura McNeal, Dark Water (Alfred A. Knopf)

Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown (Amistad/ HarperCollins)

Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer (Amistad/ HarperCollins)

Young People’s Literature Judges: Laban Carrick Hill, Kelly Link, Tor Seidler, Hope Anita Smith, Sara Zarr

After winning the Man Booker Award last night, The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson shot up to #10 on Amazon’s sales rankings (it had been at #1,086 before the announcement).

The Daily Beast examines the impact of the award on sales in The Power of the Booker. Although it’s a British prize and is not open to Americans, it sells more books in the U.S. than our own homegrown awards (like the National Book Awards; candidates will be announced at noon today).

Jacobson appeared on the BBC Breakfast show today; link here to see a very happy winner.

Earlier, Jacobson talked about his ambition to write the “funniest book ever” on the BBC’s Review Show, followed by a heated debate over the book’s merits by several reviewers, including Germaine Greer (who does not love it).

Jacobson was longlisted for the Booker in 2006 for Kalooki Nights (S&S) and in 2002 for Who’s Sorry Now (not in print in the U.S.).

The Man Booker prize winner was just announced at a dinner in London. The winner is Howard Jacobson for The Finkler Question, just published today in the U.S.

On All Things Considered last night, David Sax (author of Save the Deli) explained why he thought it should win. It was also reviewed by Library Journal last week.

Jacobson, often called the “British Philip Roth,” was recently quoted in The Jewish Week (“Can Howard Jacobson Play In America?“), saying this comparison no longer makes sense, “Roth has essentially stopped being funny…He is perfectly within his rights to have stopped being funny … but [life’s] never too serious to laugh.”

The Guardian published an excellent profile of Jacobson this summer.

The great news for libraries? It’s in trade paperback.

The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 1608196119 / 9781608196111

The winner of the Man Booker Award will be announced in just a few hours. One of the shortlist titles, The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson releases in the US today. On All Things Considered last night, David Sax (author of Save the Deli) explains why he thinks it should win. It was also reviewed by Library Journal last week.

The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 1608196119 / 9781608196111

However, the front runner among UK bookies is the experimental novel, C by Tom McCarthy.

C Tom McCarthy Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-09-07) ISBN / EAN: 0307593339 / 9780307593337

Tantor Audio; UNABR; Narrated by Stephen Hoye
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Tied for second place with Room by Emma Donoghue is another title with a room in it, In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut. It will not be available in the U.S. until Nov. 2.

In a Strange Room Damon Galgut Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Europa Editions – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 1609450116 / 9781609450113

The national newspapers pulled out their big guns to offer assessments of Mario Vargas Llosa, the winner of the Noble Prize in literature. For those who prefer speed, The Daily Beast Books Editor offers a 60-Second Guide to the Nobel Lit Winner.

L.A. Times, David L. Ulin, Critic’s Notebook: Mario Vargas Llosa’s work and life push boundaries

New York Times, Michiko Kakutani,  A Storyteller Enthralled by the Power of Art

Washington Post, Marie Arana, The power of Mario Vargas Llosa’s words led the political writer to Nobel Prize

Vargas Llosa’s next book, El Sueno del Celta (Celtic Dream), about Roger Casement, one of the leaders of  Ireland’s Easter Rising revolt, will be published by Alfaguara on November 3. FSG is scheduled to release the English translation in 2012, but that date may be moved up.

Sueno del Celta / Celtic Dream (Spanish Edition) Mario Vargas Llosa Retail Price: $19.99 Paperback: 250 pages Publisher: Alfaguara – (2010-11-03) ISBN / EAN: 1616052465 / 9781616052461

Click here to download a sales sheet with ISBN’s for the complete Vargas Llosa Spanish-language backlist. The top-selling titles in the U.S. are Travesuras de la niña mala (The Bad Girl) and Fiesta del Chivo (Feast of the Goat).

Which book deserves to win the Man Booker prize, to be announced tomorrow? The Wall Street Journal‘s Paul Levy looks at the list of contenders and deems some of the judge’s decisions “downright perverse;” like eliminating two novels that were on the longlist, the “riveting” The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (Penguin 4/27/10) and the “thrillingly imaginative” The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (Random House, 6/29/10).

Despite finding Tom McCarthy’s C (Knopf, 9/7/10) the “most daring work on the shortlist,” Levy comes down on the side of Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America (Knopf, 4/20/10).

He considers one of the front runners, currently the best selling of the shortlist titles in the U.S., Emma Donoghue’s Room, (Little, Brown, 9/13/10) “unworthy” to even be on the list.

Librarians will be happy to know that this year, the Nobel Prize in Literature did not go to a writer whose books are unavailable in the US.

The winner, Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa was announced in Stockholm today. He is the first South American to win the prize since Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1982.

Vargas Llosa is currently in the US, as a visiting professor at Princeton, teaching a course on the writing novels as well as one on Jorge Luis Borges at Princeton.

He is published in the US by FSG and, in paperback, Picador.

With just three weeks to go, UK betting odds put C by Tom McCarthy as the leading contender for the Booker prize (the top title in terms of sales is Room by Emma Donoghue; it’s number 2 in betting by a slight margin over Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, which won’t be published here until 11/2, after the prize is announced).

After getting the cold shoulder from Michiko Kakutani in the daily NY Times, (“disappointing and highly self-conscious”), it has fared much better with critics in other papers, including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times (“An avant-garde masterpiece”) and the Sunday NYT Book Review (a “strange, original book”) and now gets an A- in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly,

The protagonist of Tom McCarthy’s experimental new work is named Serge, which is appropriate for a book so crackling with all things electric. Serge’s life — and his obsessions with telegraphy and Morse code — reads like W. Somerset Maugham tweaked to a frenetic and distorted frequency…

C Tom McCarthy Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-09-07) ISBN / EAN: 0307593339 / 9780307593337

Tantor Audio; UNABR; Narrated by Stephen Hoye

So far, four of the six titles on the Booker shortlist are available in the US. The other two are on their way, but will not be available in time for Americans to read them before the prizes are announced on Oct. 12.

Tom McCarthy’s C is now in the lead in UK betting. Shortly after the longlist was announced, Peter Carey, who has won the prize twice, was the leader for Parrot and Olivier in America.

Current odds at UK book maker William Hill are:

2/1  Tom McCarthy – C
3/1  Emma Donoghue – Room
3/1  Damon Galgut – In a Strange Room
5/1  Peter Carey – Parrot and Olivier in America
7/1  Andrea Levy – The Long Song
8/1  Howard Jacobson – The Finkler Question

At least one UK critic feels that, despite having the lowest odds, The Finkler Question should win. The book will be published here on the day of the Booker announcement. Author Howard Jacobson, often called the “British Philip Roth,” is recently quoted in The Jewish Week (“Can Howard Jacobson Play In America?“), saying this comparison no longer makes sense, “Roth has essentially stopped being funny…He is perfectly within his rights to have stopped being funny … but [life’s] never too serious to laugh.”

Not yet reviewed here, the UK reviews have been strong:

Telegraph, 6/28/10; “Humour, insight and chutzpah pepper this fictional foray into what it means to be Jewish”

Guardian, 8/15/10; “In this dazzling novel, Howard Jacobson uses Jewishness as a way in to universal questions about life and society.”

The Independent, 8/1/10; “Jacobson’s prose is a seamless roll of blissfully melancholic interludes. Almost every page has a quotable, memorable line.”

The Times of London, 7/24/10; “How is it possible to read Howard Jacobson and not lose oneself in admiration for the music of his language, the power of his characterisation and the penetration of his insight? … The Finkler Question is further proof, if any was needed, of Jacobson’s mastery of humour.”

The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Bloomsbury USA – (2010-10-12) ISBN / EAN: 1608196119 / 9781608196111

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Now in a tie for second place in betting with Emma Donoghue’s Room, South African Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, won’t be published here until Nov. 2,  after the prize is announced.

This is the story of a young traveler, who, not knowing what he is seeking, follows various people he meets along the way. It has also received stellar reviews in the U.K.

Guardian, 6/22/10, Jan Morris, ‘Truly superlative… Extraordinarily readable… Galgut displays his wonderful sense of place, but also profoundly explores intimate relationships between people… A very beautiful book, strikingly conceived and hauntingly written, a writer’s novel par excellence without a clumsy word in it.”

Telegraph, 5/3/10; “…as inviting as it is troubling.”

In a Strange Room Damon Galgut Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Europa Editions – (2010-11-02) ISBN / EAN: 1609450116 / 9781609450113

Below is this year’s list of Mocks, from Bank Street School.

Mock Newbery 2011

Mock Printz 2011

A small moment of gloating if I may. Last year when I posted that our kids picked When You Reach Me, there were a few comments sent to me by e-mail, that of course our kids who live and go to school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan picked a book about their neighborhood. Hah! (if readers recall, my kids picked the real winner). My favorite kid comment was, “I loved this book because it was all the genres at once, realistic, historical fiction, fantasy and a mystery.”

I am in for marathon sessions of booktalks in the coming weeks. Wish me luck.

The announcement of the Booker Short List was somewhat delayed by the transit strike in London today. The following are the six titles, by current Amazon sales rankings in the U.S. (The Guardian features a slide show with a description and the British publishing history of each title. Warning: those are the British covers):

#422 Room, Emma Donoghue, (Little, Brown, 9/13) — coming out next week, Room has received advance buzz and comparisons to The Lovely Bones.

#3,931  C, Tom McCarthy’s, (Knopf 9/07) —  just received a decidedly not positive review from Michiko Kakutani, NYT.

# 21,332 Parrot and Olivier in America, Peter Carey, (Knopf; 4/20) — if Carey wins, this would be his third Booker. The book reached a high of #422 on Amazon after it was released.

# 37,883  The Long Song, Andrea Levy, (FSG, 4/27) — reached a high of #9,642 — Jamaican-British author Andrea Levy also wrote Small Island, which was made into two-part series that appeared on PBS Materpiece Theater this Spring. Set in Jamaica in the 19th C, The Long Song is narrated by July, a house slave on a sugar plantation.

Not available in the U.S (UPDATE: These titles are now forthcoming)

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut

Not making the cut from the Booker long list is Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray (Faber & Faber) just released here to strong reviews. It has the highest U.S. Amazon ranking of the all the longlist titles at #134 and is currently being adapted as a film.

Also not on the list is the best-selling title in the UK (but at a lowly #11,993 on Amazon rankings here), The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, was published as an original trade paperback here by Penguin (4-27). The Australian author has made waves by calling European writers “dry and academic” as compared to Americans. The London Evening Standard called it a Slap in the Face for Popular Read.

We talk a lot about the importance of advocacy. Here’s a chance to do something; The New York Times, ALA and the Carnegie Corporation have made it possible through the “I Love My Librarian Award” to get our public… users, parents, teachers, kids, to take a moment, think deeply about why they love their libraries and their librarians and nominate them for an award. This is an opportunity for our constituency to make it known how librarians change lives.

Up to ten winners will be selected; each will receive $5,000 cash, a plaque and $500 travel stipend to attend an awards reception in New York hosted by The New York Times.

They have made it easy. The website provides a press release that can be adapted for your own community. The actual nomination is an easy-to-fill out on-line form, with separate ones tailored for public, school and college/university libraries.

Nominations are open through September 20.