The Slap has “has sparked heated discussions across the world” according to The Telegraph. Now the author of “the most divisive book” on the long list for the Booker Prize, Christos Tsiolkas is making enemies by calling European writers dry and academic, preferring John Updike’s Couples because it has “a fearlessness that I am hungry for.”

About the aftermath of a guest slapping an obnoxious child, not his own, at a barbecue The Slap is currently the most popular Booker nominee in the UK, selling 3.5 times more copies than the second most popular title, The Room by Emma Donoghue.

It is not nearly as popular here, where it’s at #4,352 on Amazon’s list, as opposed to #16  in the UK. In libraries, holds are light.

So, here’s a thought; it may be an ideal choice for book clubs. It’s available here in paperback, people love it or hate it, making for heated discussions, and there’s the added interest of seeing whether it continues on the Booker short list (to be announced 9/7) and whether it wins the Booker in October (10/12).

It’s received strong reviews in both the UK and the US:

London Review of Books

Jane Smiley reviewed it in The Guardian in May

L.A. Times

Washington Post

Tsiolkas, who lives in Australia, has been interviewed here by WAMU’s Diane Rehm and  The Bookslut.

The Slap: A Novel Christos Tsiolkas Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 496 pages Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) – (2010-04-27) ISBN / EAN: 0143117149 / 9780143117148

The Romance Writers of America named their RITA Awards, for best published romance novels and novellas and their Golden Heart Awards, for best manuscripts, this weekend. Harlequin nabbed the largest number, winning four of twelve RITA’s.

The winner in the hot paranormal category is Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole, part of the best-selling Immortals After Dark series. Earlier this year, the creators of the web site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, told NPR that the series is the best representative of the genre, “full of Norse mythology and the women are just incredibly empowered and fascinating characters.”

Kiss of a Demon King (Immortals After Dark, Book 6) Kresley Cole Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages Publisher: Pocket – (2009-01-20) ISBN / EAN: 1416580948 / 9781416580942

The association also gives a Librarian of the Year Award, to “a librarian who demonstrates outstanding support of romance authors and the romance genre.” This year’s winner is Jennifer Lohmann from Durham County Library, Durham, North Carolina.

After winning the UK’s Man Booker Prize last year, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall went on to big success here in the U.S. Will one of the titles on the long list of 13 candidates, announced today, follow in those footsteps when the winner is announced in October?

Buzzed about at BEA, Room by Emma Donoghue, comes out here in September, good timing to receive a boost from the October announcement. The Guardian calls it, “Perhaps the most controversial novel [on the list], inspired by the case of Josef Fritzl who kept his daughter prisoner for 24 years. The novel, which was one of 14 called in by judges – rather than being submitted by the publisher – was installed as second favourite for the prize by Ladbrokes.”  It is being published in the UK in August and will arrive here in September. The Economist says,  “…it is already being talked about as the next The Lovely Bones.”

Room: A Novel Emma Donoghue Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-09-13) ISBN / EAN: 0316098337 / 9780316098335

Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781607886273; $29.98
Hachette Large Print; 9780316120579; Trade Pbk; $24.99

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The London bookmakers disagree on the favorites. Reports The Guardian, “Peter Carey, one of two novelists to have won the prize twice…was immediately installed as 3-1 favourite by Ladbrokes to win for his novel Parrot and Olivier in America…The contest looks open at this stage, reflected in rival bookmaker William Hill making [The Long Song by Andrea] Levy the 4-1 favourite and Carey 7-1.”

Australian Peter Carey won the prize for Oscar and Lucinda in 1988 and True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001.

Parrot and Olivier in America Peter Carey Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-04-20) ISBN / EAN: 0307592626 / 9780307592620

Blackstone Audio; UNABR; Read by Humphrey Bower

14 CD; 9781441729750;  $54.50
2 MP3CD; 9781441729781; $14.98
1 Playaway; 9781441729811;  $45.49
10 Tape; 9781441729743; $39.98

Large Print; Thorndike; 9781410428608; $30.99
OverDrive WMA Audiobook; MP3 Audiobook; Adobe EPUB eBook
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The William Hill favorite is The Long Song. 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.

The Long Song: A Novel Andrea Levy Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux – (2010-04-27) ISBN / EAN: 0374192170 / 9780374192174

The British press noted the absence of some big names on the list; Martin Amis’s The Pregnant Widow, McEwan’s Solar and Salman Rushdie’s Luka and the Fire of Life (pubbing here Nov. 6).  There’s a bit of a scuffle between the Booker’s director, Ion Trewin, and Amis, who declared that literary prizes go to boring books. Perhaps in retaliation, Trewin said that it’s obvious why Amis’s Pregnant Widow is not on the list; “You’ve only got to look at the reviews to see why he isn’t there.” (The Telegraph).

To qualify, books must be written by authors from the UK and the British Commonwealth and published in the UK between October 1, 2009 and September 30, 2010, which means that several of the titles are not yet available in the U.S and others have not been scheduled for publication here. Below are the rest of the titles on the list.

Available in the U.S.

Tom McCarthy is described by The Telegraph as a relative newcomer,  “who labored seven years before finding a publisher. He has been lauded as a great new author by many in the publishing world. Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth, described his first novel Remainder as ‘one of the great English novels of the past 10 years.'”

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

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David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet has been widely reviewed in the U.S. and shows heavy holds in libraries. This is the author’s third nomination.

This is the library favorite; it is the leader in both number of copies in the libraries we checked and number of holds.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel David Mitchell Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 496 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-06-29) ISBN / EAN: 1400065453 / 9781400065455

Recorded Books; UNABR; Read by Jonathan Aris, Paula Wilcox; Click on link for ordering information.

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Canadian author Lisa Moore’s February, her second after the award-winning Alligator, got a mixed reception in the NYT Book Review, after some strong prepub reviews.

February Lisa Moore Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat – (2010-02-02) ISBN / EAN: 0802170706 / 9780802170705

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Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies is coming out here later this Summer. In the UK, the Telegraph picked it for summer reading, saying, “The glorious comedy masks a barely contained fury over the hypocrisy of  the ambitions of [a Catholic school in modern-day Dublin] and the dishonesty of parents hiding their desperate materialism behind an apparent conviction in the [school’s] so-called values.” Kirkus outdid themselves with this assessment; “If Harry Potter lived in an alternate Ireland, had no real magical powers but talked a good game, and fell all over himself every time he saw a girl, he might well belong in this splendid, sardonic magnum opus.”

Skippy Dies: A Novel Paul Murray Retail Price: $28.00 Hardcover: 672 pages Publisher: Faber & Faber – (2010-08-31) ISBN / EAN: 0865479437 / 9780865479432

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Rose Tremain won the Orange Prize two years ago for The Road Home. Her new book, which arrives in Oct, has not yet been reviewed prepub here.. In Canada, where it was just released, The Globe and Mail called it a “dark and powerful novel.”

Trespass: A Novel Rose Tremain Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2010-10-18) ISBN / EAN: 0393079562 / 9780393079562

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Greek-Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap is a favorite of Penguin’s head of library marketing, Alan Walker, who featured it at PLA’s Book Buzz this year. In the UK, it has appeared  on many summer reading lists.

The Slap: A Novel Christos Tsiolkas Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 496 pages Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) – (2010-04-27) ISBN / EAN: 0143117149 / 9780143117148

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Not Scheduled for Publication in the US

South African Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Books)

Alan Warner, The Stars in the Bright Sky, (Random House – Jonathan Cape)

Helen Dunmore, The Betrayal, (Penguin – Fig Tree); UPDATE – Grove/Atlantic has acquired the book to publish in the US

Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

At San Diego Comic-Con this past Friday evening the winners of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were announced and as always the winners provide an interesting snapshot of what’s hot, what’s great, and what’s making fanboys hearts pitter patter this year.

For those not familiar with the ins and outs of the industry, here’s a run down of the not-to-miss winners and a guide for selectors of titles that are (or will soon be) in high demand.

First, the easy part: a number of the winners this year are no-brainers.  You should already have them on your shelves, and if you don’t, shame on you.  Now’s the time to get them!  David Mazzucchelli and his acclaimed Asterios Polyp walked off with three awards, including Best Graphic Album (the equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar) and Best Writer/Artist.  Robert Kirkman picked up another Eisner for the acclaimed The Walking Dead for Best Continuing Series.  This series is already popular, and the new TV series arriving from AMC is adding even more buzz.  Scott Pilgrim Volume 5, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe won Best Humor Publication, and creator Bryan Lee O’Malley was presented with the award by no less than the cast of the Scott Pilgirm movie due out in just a few weeks.  Ed Brubaker, one of the hardest working and best writers in the business, took home his third Eisner Award for Best Writer for his work on Captain America, Daredevil, Marvels Project, Criminal, and Incognito. Brubaker’s work on Captain America and Daredevil has reminded readers how compelling superheroes can be in the right hands.

Artist J. H. Williams III deservedly won for his gorgeous work on Detective Comics, the flagship series from DC Comics, launched in 1937, that currently has Batwoman as its tantalizing focus. The hardcover edition rocketed on to the NYT Graphic Best Seller list and has stayed there. Jill Thompson is well known in the comics industry but sadly not as recognized outside of it, so it’s lovely to see her gaining two awards: Best Publication for Teens for Beasts of Burden and Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (Interior Art) for both Beasts of Burden and Magic Trixie and the Dragon. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, is beloved by comics fans and young readers alike, and Young’s art in particular shines.

A few pleasant surprises improve this year’s list of winners from past years. In recognition of the plethora of adapted works, the Eisner Judges created a new category this year to recognize creations from outside source material, and Darwyn Cooke’s brooding Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter handily took home that honor. I cheered to see Emmanuel Guibert’s gripping The Photographer take home the Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Language Material award, and overjoyed to see A Drifting Life and Yoshihiro Tatsumi win not only for Best Edition of Foreign Material – Asia but also for Best Reality-Based Work. Personally, I’d hoped that Naoki Urasawa might finally have his year for winning, with both Pluto and 20th Century Boys in the running, but it’s no shame to lose out to Tatsumi’s epic memoir.

One final note: Marian Churchland won the distinguished Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award for her critically acclaimed Beast. Past winners include Scott McCloud, Eric Shanower, Jeff Smith, and Eleanor Davis, so this award is a solid predictor of talent. Sadly, Beast is very difficult to locate from the usual vendors, and Image Comics has allowed it to go out of print, but there are a few copies still available via Amazon, so if you can get your hands on a copy, snap it up.

The winner in the novel category for the Shirley Jackson Awards is a book that was published with a modest 10,000 copy first printing, but went on to be chosen as one of the Top Ten Titles of 2009 by Publishers Weekly, Big Machine by Victor LaValle. Just before it was published last year, the Wall Street Journal predicted that LaValle’s third novel would be his breakout, but said it faced, “major hurdles in finding a broad audience [because] it has always been difficult to market black literary fiction.”

Big Machine: A Novel Victor LaValle Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Spiegel & Grau – (2009-08-11) ISBN / EAN: 0385527985 / 9780385527989

The book was released in trade paperback in March.

Big Machine: A Novel Victor LaValle Retail Price: $15.00 Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Spiegel & Grau – (2010-03-09) ISBN / EAN: 0385527993 / 9780385527996

Barbara Kingsolver won the UK’s Orange Prize in a ceremony last night in London’s Royal Festival Hall for her novel The Lacuna.

The annual prize is awarded to a woman author, from any country, for a novel written in English. The prize was established in 1996 in reaction to the 1991 all-male Booker short list and is funded by Orange, a UK mobile phone and internet service company.

The UK’s Guardian calls The Lacuna,

…arguably the most demanding of the six books on the shortlist. It’s a doorstopping novel that needs to be read properly rather than in snatches and tackles big subjects that resonate today – not least, the media creation of, and obsession with, celebrity.

and said it held off “heavyweight competition” from Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winning Wolf Hall and Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs.

Of the other books on the short list, Rosie Alison’s The Very Thought of You (not published in the US) is called “the curve ball” by committee chair Daisy Goodwin, because it is “an old-fashioned romance…which had not even been reviewed by a national paper.” As the Guardian points out, however, it has not suffered from the lack of reviews and was selling well in the UK before the announcement.

The Guardian noted surprise at “the inclusion of a thriller,” Black Water Rising by American author Attica Locke as well as the “page-turningly enjoyable” The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey (not published in the US).

The prize gave a boost to The Lacuna which rose to #7 on Amazon’s sales ranking in the UK , as well as to most of the short list titles (Wolf Hall, now in paperback in the UK, was already in the top 10):

#12 (from #23) The Very Thought of You, Rosie Alison

#22 (from #49) The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, Monique Roffey

#81 (from #276) A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore

#105  (from #852) Black Water Rising, Attica Locke

In the U.S. none of the titles available here has cracked the Amazon top 100 since the announcement; Lacuna, which was a best seller here after it was published last year, rose to #286 from #514 yesterday.

The New Yorker has announced their picks of the best 20 writers under 40. This is the magazine’s first such list since 1999, when it identified several future literary successes, such as Junot Díaz and Jhumpa Lahiri. Stories by the authors will be featured in upcoming issues.

By the way, the list is evenly divided between women and men.

Several of the authors have new books coming this fall; all but one were featured at the recent BEA librarians’ Shout & Share program:

Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel Gary Shteyngart Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-07-27) ISBN / EAN: 1400066409 / 9781400066407

Also picked as a summer read by Time magazine, this is the author’s third book after The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (2003) and Absurdistan (2007).

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Great House: A Novel Nicole Krauss Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company – (2010-10-04) ISBN / EAN: 0393079988 / 9780393079982

This is the third novel by Krauss, who is married to another author on the list, Jonathan Safron Foer. Her History of Love (Norton, 2005) received acclaim and was a fixture on several best seller lists in paperback.

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How to Read the Air Dinaw Mengestu Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover – (2010-10-14) ISBN / EAN: 1594487707 / 9781594487705

Mengestu’s first book, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, won many awards

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The only one of the group not mentioned during Shout & Share is a title coming out in March, 2011.

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The rest of the authors have published books that are well-represented in libraries; a good opportunity for a display. The list below shows each author’s latest titles; links are to EarlyWord coverage.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 32 — The Thing Around Your Neck, Knopf, 6/10

Daniel Alarcón, 33 — Secret Miracle: The Novelist’s Handbook, Holt, 4/10

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, 38 — Ms. Hempel Chronicles, Holt, 9/08

Joshua Ferris, 35 — The Unnamed, 1/10

Jonathan Safran Foer, 33 — Eating Animals, Little, Brown, 11/09

Nell Freudenberger, 35 — The Dissident, Ecco, 8/06

Rivka Galchen, 34 — Atmospheric Disturbances, 5/08

Yiyun Li, 37 — Vagrants, 3/09

Philipp Meyer, 36 — American Rust, Spiegle & Grau, 2/09

C.E. Morgan, 33 — All the Living, FSG, 3/09

ZZ Packer, 37 — Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, Riverhead, 3/03

Karen Russell, 28 — St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Knopf, 9/06

Salvatore Scibona, 35 — The End, Graywolf Press, 10/09; was a surprise nominee for the National Book Awards in ’09, but lost out to Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country

Wells Tower, 37 — Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, FSG, 2/10 — was on several Best Books lists last year.

If you haven’t already, it’s time to learn to spell “Paolo Bacigalupi.” The author’s first book, The Windup Girl,  just won a Nebula from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America in the best novel category. It’s also nominated for a Hugo for Best Novel (it’s rare for a first novel to be nominated in this category) and a Locus for Best First Novel.

A recent proflie of the Bacigalupi in Denver WestWorld (he’s from Colorado) reveals his “fascination with the half-hidden horrors of contemporary life” (like the true contents of a PB&J sandwich) and how to pronounce his last name (BAH-cha-ga-loo-py).

The Windup Girl Paolo Bacigalupi Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 300 pages Publisher: Night Shade Books – (2010-04-20) ISBN / EAN: 1597801585 / 9781597801584

Brilliance Audio; UNABR; 9781441866875; 16 CDs; $99.97
MP3-CD; 9781441866899; $44.97

Bacigalupi’s just-released YA title, Ship Breakers had buzz at PLA in March. It also got this great mini-review on our latest Galley Chat from the Nile, Illinois PL,

…modern twist on Mad Max scenario; replaces nukes w/ global warming & trades truck-driving skinheads for boats & pirates

Ship Breaker Paolo Bacigalupi Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2010-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316056219 / 9780316056212

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The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy went to an online  title, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente, winning out over conventionally-published titles by established authors. An audio version will be available from Brilliance in April, 2011:

The Girl Who Circumnavigated the Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own
Valente, Catherynne
Read by the author
Brilliance Audio; UNABR; 1441877606; $29.99
Pub Date: April 01, 2011

The winning short story, Spar by Kij Johnson  and winning novelette Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast, by Eugie Foster are also free online. In both categories, there were other nominees that are online titles.  The full list of nominees for all categories is available here.

The Country Cooking of Ireland by Colman Andrews was named the Cookbook of the Year at the James Beard Foundation ceremony on Sunday night. Celebrity chef and restauranteur, Thomas Keller, won for General Cooking with Ad Hoc at Home (Artisan), which also won an IACP Award last week. The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts (Abrams), also won awards from both groups.

The Country Cooking of Ireland Colman Andrews Retail Price: $50.00 Hardcover: 392 pages Publisher: Chronicle Books – (2009-11-11) ISBN / EAN: 081186670X / 9780811866705

After weeks of waiting for the results to be e-mailed and phoned in, I am thrilled to announce that Robot Zot! by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by David Shannon, has won the 2010 Irma Simonton Black and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature.

Robot Zot! Jon Scieszka Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 40 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing – (2009-09-22) ISBN / EAN: 1416963944 / 9781416963943

Three books received honors:

A Penguin Story Antoinette Portis Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 40 pages Publisher: HarperCollins – (2009-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061456888 / 9780061456886

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Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem Mac Barnett Retail Price: $16.99 Hardcover: 48 pages Publisher: Hyperion Book CH – (2009-06-23) ISBN / EAN: 0786849584 / 9780786849581

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Sergio Saves the Game Edel Rodriguez Retail Price: $15.99 Hardcover: 40 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2009-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316066176 / 9780316066174

The Black Award will be presented on Thursday, May 13th at 8:30 am at the Bank Street College of Education. NY. The keynote speaker will be Carmen Deedy, who won a Black Honor in 2007 for Martina The Beautiful Cockroach, Peachtree Press.

Martina the Beautiful Cockroach Carmen Agra Deedy Retail Price: $19.95 Hardcover: 32 pages Publisher: Peachtree Publishers – (2008-09-01) ISBN / EAN: 1561454680 / 9781561454686

Librarians who want to attend may RSVP by email to Linda Reing or by phone, 212.961.3332.

Irma Simonton Black was a writer and editor of children’s books and a founding member (in the 1930s) of the Bank Street Writers Laboratory, which included such stars of children’s literature as Margaret Wise Brown and Maurice Sendak.

The Black Award (for short), which commemorates Irma’s achievements, has been presented annually since 1973 by Bank Street College of Education. (The Award was presented in Irma’s name only until 1992, when James Black’s name was added in recognition of his ardent support of the Award.) The Award goes to an outstanding book for young children — a book in which text and illustrations are inseparable, each enhancing and enlarging on the other to produce a singular whole.

The Award is unusual in that children are the final judges of the winning book. The process is as follows:

Your fearless, tireless librarian/ friend, Lisa Von Drasek reads all of the picture books published in the year. We develop a short list of about 75 titles that meet our criteria of what is an excellent children’s picture book (my personal criteria is a little more basic; can I stand reading aloud this title over and over and over again? Will I hang my head in shame if the kids pick it as best of the year?)

Then a group of librarians and educators choose approximately twenty to twenty-five books that they consider the best candidates for the Award. These books are then sent (in four sets) to the four 8-9’s and 9-10’s classrooms at the Bank Street School for Children. Over the course of five weeks the children read and discuss all of the books before selecting four finalists. These four–called the Black Honor Books–are placed in classrooms or libraries in schools, in New York and elsewhere.

Over 2,000 children voted this year.

For collection development librarians who are looking for a list of great read aloud, The Black winners are surefire hits. More information and a list of previous winners is available at the Bank Street College Children’s Library site.

At last night’s Edgar Awards, one of our favorite mysteries, The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books) won for Best Novel (the full list of winners is available here).

It’s now available in trade paperback.

The Last Child John Hart Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 432 pages Publisher: Minotaur Books – (2010-03-09) ISBN / EAN: 0312642369 / 9780312642365

Macmillan Audio; UNABR; 9781427206664; $39.95
BBC Audio; UNABR; 9780792763789 : 110.95

Best First Novel went to another Minotaur title, In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff. The trade paperback edition will be available in a couple of weeks.

In the Shadow of Gotham Stefanie Pintoff Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Minotaur Books – (2010-05-11) ISBN / EAN: 0312628129 / 9780312628123

Potential winners were treated to a harsh dose of reality from the Wall Street Journal yesterday in an article that points out “the first Edgar is often the last” (somewhat amelioriated by the fact that John Hart proved them wrong this time. It’s his second win, after 2008 for Down River);

A perusal of the group’s online database found little overlap between debut authors who have won best first novel (including Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly, James Patterson and Richard North Patterson) and seasoned mystery writers who have won best novel (among them Dick Francis, Tony Hillerman, Elmore Leonard, John le Carre, Donald E. Westlake and Raymond Chandler).

Nonetheless, not bad company to be in.

This book had us at the cover, but clearly it’s got even more going for it; the International Assoc. of Culinary Professionals named Rose’s Heavenly Cakes the Cookbook of the Year.

Rose’s Heavenly Cakes Rose Levy Beranbaum Retail Price: $39.95 Hardcover: 512 pages Publisher: Wiley – (2009-09-22) ISBN / EAN: 0471781738 / 9780471781738

Perhaps the judges feel the need for more sweetness in life; baking books won in two other categories (view the full list here):

Professional Kitchens

Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft The Culinary Institute of America Retail Price: $70.00 Hardcover: 944 pages Publisher: Wiley – (2009-05-04) ISBN / EAN: 047005591X / 9780470055915

Food and Beverage Reference/Technical

The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts International Culinary Center, Judith Choate Retail Price: $75.00 Hardcover: 512 pages Publisher: Stewart, Tabori & Chang – (2009-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 1584798033 / 9781584798033

It’s always fun to see the little guy win. In the case of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the little guy is small press (or, as the Wall Street Journal calls it, “tiny press”), Bellevue Literary Press.

The WSJ‘s “SpeakEasy” blog writes about the drama at Bellevue’s offices when they got the news that they were the first small press to be so honored since Louisiana State won for A Confederacy of Dunces in 1981.

Happily, in this case, the author is still living.

The book continues at #10 (and rising) on Amazon

Tinkers Paul Harding Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 192 pages Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press – (2009-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 193413712X / 9781934137123

A debut novel, published by a small indie press, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Tinkers Paul Harding Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 192 pages Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press – (2009-01-01) ISBN / EAN: 193413712X / 9781934137123

Bellevue Literary Press was founded in 2005 and is affiliated with NYU’s School of Medicine.

As a result of the announcement, the book raced up Amazon’s sales rankings, from #162,012 to #10.

It may be a surprise that the winner is a debut book and from such a small (one could say “tiny”) press, but it hasn’t been exactly unsung. It had already appeared on several year-end best books lists (Library Journal, Publishers Weekly and Amazon) and received strong prepub reviews from Publishers Weekly (an “outstanding debut”), Library Journal (“a solid addition for literary collections”) as well as a star from Booklist (“a rare and beautiful novel of spiritual inheritance and acute psychological and metaphysical suspense”). In the consumer review media, it was covered by the Boston Globe (in a review by Chris Bojalian), the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, the Hartford Courant and the L.A. Times (which also named it as a finalist for their book prize) and it was an IndieNext pick for Jan. ’09. However, the New York Times, both the daily and the Book Review, overlooked it.

According to Publishers Weekly, just 15,000 copies were in print before the announcement. Bellevue is planning to go back to press on the book.

Paul Harding’s next book, Enon will be published by Random House; it was sold at auction at the end of 2009 to Susan Kamill, RH’s Editor-in-Chief (via Publishers Marketplace); no pub date yet.

The two finalists in Fiction are both short story collections. Love in Infant Monkeys, by Lydia Millet, which is also from a small indie press, Soft Skull. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin (Norton), was a National Book Award finalist.

More mainstream, but less heralded, is the winner in the General Nonfiction category; The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, by David E. Hoffman (Doubleday), which did not appear on major end-of-the-year best lists.

The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy David E. Hoffman Retail Price: $35.00 Hardcover: 592 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2009-09-22) ISBN / EAN: 0385524374 / 9780385524377

Audio and eBook available from OverDrive.

The finalists in that category have been more recognized:

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities, John Cassidy, FSG

The Evolution of God, Robert Wright, Little, Brown

Below are the winners and finalists in the other book categories (the full list of all categories is here).

HISTORY

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, Liaquat Ahamed, Penguin

Finalists

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City, Greg Grandin, Holt

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, by Gordon S. Wood, Oxford University Press

POETRY

Versed, Rae Armantrout, Wesleyan

Finalists

Tryst, Angie Estes, Oberlin College Press

Inseminating the Elephant, Lucia Perillo, Copper Canyon Press

BIOGRAPHY

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, T.J. Stiles, Knopf

Finalists

Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, John Milton Cooper, Jr., Knopf

Cheever: A Life, Blake Bailey, Knopf

Among the just-announced nominees for the Hugo Award in the Best Novel category is The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, which also appeared on several end-of-the-year best books lists. This is Bacigalupi’s first novel (he has written many short stories; several are in the collection, Pump Six and Other Stories, Night Shade, 2008); it is also a nominee for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America’s Nebula Award for Best Novel. The Windup Girl is published by independent Night Shade Books.

The galley of Bacigalupi’s next book, a YA title, Ship Breaker, to be pubbed by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers next month, made a splash at the recent PLA. Kirkus is the first to review it, calling it a “gripping futuristic thriller.”

The author is from Colorado.

Ship Breaker Paolo Bacigalupi Retail Price: $17.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – (2010-05-01) ISBN / EAN: 0316056219 / 9780316056212