Extract from Tinkers by Paul Harding
An extract from the Pulitzer prize-winning novelExcerpt from Tinkers by Paul Harding, published by Bellevue Literary Press© 2009 by Paul HardingPulitzer prizefictionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 13, 2010 Tags: Pulitzer prize fiction Books Culture guardian.co.uk Features Extracts
2010 Pulitzer Winners Announced
The Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced:
fiction
Tinkers, by Paul Harding
History
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed
Biography
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, by T.J. Stiles
Poetry
Versed, by Rae Armantrout
General Nonfiction
The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, by David E. Hoffman
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Likely Stories - April 13, 2010 Author: Courtney Jones Tags: Awards
Joe Hill: Sympathy for the devil
The author of Horns, about a man who thinks of the devil as the first superhero, has himself been harbouring a very dark secret: that he's Stephen King's sonGod, says Joe Hill's antihero in his new novel, Horns, is "an unimaginative writer of popular fictions, someone who builds stories around sadistic and graceless plots", while the devil "is first a literary critic, who delivers this untalented scribbler the public flaying He deserves".Hill has so far managed to avoid any public flayings – although, as the son of horror supremo Stephen King, he might have expected a few cries of nepotism. But then, Hill's path to publi...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 13, 2010 Author: Alison Flood Tags: Science fiction, fantasy and horror Stephen King Books Culture guardian.co.uk Features Interviews
Pulitzer prize goes to 'little book from a little publisher'
Paul Harding's Tinkers, published by Bellevue Literary Press, wins $10,000 awardA debut novel published by a tiny independent not-for-profit press has won the Pulitzer prize for fiction.Paul Harding's Tinkers, the story of a dying old man and his relationship with his father, was selected ahead of Daniyal Mueenuddin's collection of stories In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, and Lydia Millet's Love in Infant Monkeys, to take the $10,000 (£6,500) Pulitzer prize for fiction. The award is given to a piece of "distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life", with past winners including Ernest He...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 13, 2010 Author: Alison Flood Tags: Pulitzer prize fiction Books Culture guardian.co.uk News
Rooms not of one's own | AL Kennedy
The writing life involves a lot of travelling, and thus a lot of hotel rooms. I cannot describe these as conducive to great workDear Christ, kill me, just please make it stop. Hit me with something solid so I can lie down and bleed in a calm and restful manner. Which is to say – I'm a bit tired at the moment and have stopped greeting people with "Hello" and am now going with remarks pertaining to and variations on the whole "make it stop" theme. For goodness' sake, I was in my kitchen at the weekend, genuinely rattling with stress, head ticking away like the spring sale window at H Samuel, and smoking. I don't smoke – ...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 13, 2010 Author: AL Kennedy Tags: AL Kennedy fiction Books Culture guardian.co.uk Editorial
The novel as offensive weapon
If poetry is emotion recollected in tranquility, fiction quite often finds room for rather hotter passionsDJ Taylor's books abound with literary references and inspiration. In his 2006 novel Kept, Taylor acknowledged the influence of, among others, Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell, Thackeray and Trollope. His latest novel owes a debt to a few contemporary writers, but for a rather different reason. At The Chime of a City Clock features a trio of unsavoury characters, criminals Davenport and Hines and Detective Faulks ("a spindly-looking bloke in a brown mac with a strand or two of silvery hair plastered across his head"). The names...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 13, 2010 Author: Graeme Allister Tags: fiction Books Culture guardian.co.uk Blogposts
Ritter Public Library - Library “Snapshot” Day
Ritter Public Library - Home Building Blog Quick Links · Reading - Home Adult Reads Book Clubs Children Reads Current fiction Historical fiction Myst
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pligg - all - April 13, 2010 Tags: Public Libraries
Brewin Dolphin Borders Book Festival 2010 (Scotland)
"By the time of its seventh festival in 2010, the Borders Book Festival has grown into a national, UK, event. For four days in June in the stunning setting of Harmony Gardens in Melrose, it will stage the announcement of two of Britain's major literary awards. The inaugural Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction is sponsored by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch and will given to the best novel of 2009, and the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Scottish Arts Council Scottish Book of the Year will go to one of a shortlist of four."
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Peter Scott's Library Blog - April 12, 2010
Pulitzers Are Announced
The Washington Post won four Pulitzer Prizes on Monday for its work in 2009, and The New York Times won three, while ProPublica became the first of the new breed of online, nonprofit news organizations to win the most prestigious award in print journalism.
The prize for public service went to the tiny Bristol Herald Courier of southwestern Virginia, circulation 29,000, for revealing that many energy companies failed to pay required royalties on natural gas drilling, and that the royalties that were paid were not reaching the local people who deserved them.
Paul Harding won the fiction prize for his novel “Tinkers,” whi...
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LISNews.org - April 12, 2010 Author: birdie Tags: Announcements Books Journals & amp; Magazines News
Pulitzers Are Announced
The Washington Post won four Pulitzer Prizes on Monday for its work in 2009, and The New York Times won three, while ProPublica became the first of the new breed of online, nonprofit news organizations to win the most prestigious award in print journalism.
The prize for public service went to the tiny Bristol Herald Courier of southwestern Virginia, circulation 29,000, for revealing that many energy companies failed to pay required royalties on natural gas drilling, and that the royalties that were paid were not reaching the local people who deserved them.
Paul Harding won the fiction prize for his novel “Tinkers,” whi...
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LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News - April 12, 2010 Author: birdie Tags: Announcements Books Journals & amp; Magazines News
National Non-Fiction Day 2010 (UK)
National Non-fiction Day is an annual celebration, initiated by the Federation of Children's Book Groups in partnership with Scholastic Children's Books. It aims to celebrate all that is brilliant about non fiction and show that it's not just fiction that can be read and enjoyed for pleasure. The first National Non-fiction Day will be celebrated on the 4th November 2010, and annually thereafter on the first Thursday in November. RSS Feed
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Peter Scott's Library Blog - April 12, 2010
Vampire kitties!
They’re back!
Humor novelist Christopher Moore returns with Bite me: A Love Story which is a sequel to You Suck!: A Love Story, which sequelized Bloodsucking Fiends, all of which deal with the same cast of characters dealing with (or being) vampires in San Francisco.
Continuing where he left off in You Suck! (and there’s actually a fairly good summary of events up to this point in the first chapter of the book), the story really does deal with vampire cats in addition to the (more-or-less) human vampires that have already been introduced. Undead cats actually increases the creepiness factor quite a bit beca...
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MADreads - April 12, 2010 Author: Dennis - Central Tags: Recreational fiction
CLA Announces 2010 John & Patricia Beatty Award Winner
FOLSOM - The California Library Association announces Operation Redwood by S. Terrell French as the winner of the 2010 John & Patricia Beatty Award.
Since 1989, the Beatty Award annually honors an author of a distinguished book for children or young adults that best promotes an awareness of California and its people. "Aside from being an interesting read, Operation Redwood most closely adheres to the Beatty criteria," said Heather Cousin, a Beatty Award Committee member and Children's Services Supervisor at the Arcadia Public Library. "French vividly recreates rural California and the redwoods while also providing plucky,...
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CLA Weblog - April 12, 2010 Tags: Awards and Scholarships
Palm puts itself up for sale
Here’s a bit of sad news. The beleaguered Palm Inc. has put itself up for sale, working with Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners to try to find a buyer, Bloomberg reports.
As we previously reported, Palm has been having a hard time lately as its devices simply failed to find a market. Word of the sale comes as no surprise; sooner or later something like this had to happen. In a way, history is repeating itself, because the original Palm ran out of money and had to sell itself to US Robotics shortly after getting started.
If any one company could be said to be synonymous with the original e-book revolution, it would be Pa...
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TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home - April 12, 2010 Author: Chris Meadows Tags: Chris Meadows Microsoft Palm e-books e-reader ebooks ereader china Dell HTC Lenovo Palm Digital Media Palm Pilot sale
Rana Dasgupta wins Commonwealth Writers' prize
British author's novel Solo takes award, with Best First Novel prize going to Australian Glenda GuestOn the day when a band of former winners including AS Byatt, Louis de Bernières and Andrea Levy called for governments around the world to "find new ways to support literacy", and hoped that this award would help, the British writer Rana Dasgupta has won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' prize with his novel of two halves, Solo. The Australian writer Glenda Guest has won the Best First Novel award with Siddon Rock.Dasgupta's second novel, which examines the impact of the 20th century on Bulgaria through the life and dreams of...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 12, 2010 Author: Richard Lea Tags: Commonwealth writers' prize fiction Books Awards and prizes Culture guardian.co.uk News
2010 Indies Choice Book of Year Winners
The American Bookseller’s Association revealed this year’s victors, including Newbery Medal winner When You Reach Me and Caldecott winner The Lion and the Mouse in the middle reader and picture book categories. The other honors went to:
Adult fiction
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
Adult Nonfiction
The Lost City of Z, by David Grann
Adult Debut
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
Young Adult
Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
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Likely Stories - April 12, 2010 Author: Courtney Jones Tags: Awards
Impac shortlist led by Joseph O'Neill and Marilynne Robinson
'Sloppy' novels by celebrated writers discarded in favour of work by less established namesThe Irish writer Joseph O'Neill and the American Marilynne Robinson head an eight-strong shortlist for the world's richest literary award, the €100,000 (£88,000) Impac prize.Selected from a longlist of 156 titles nominated by public libraries around the world, they are joined by the British writers Robert Edric, Ross Raisin and Zoë Heller. After the traditional cull of esteemed names, with writers such as Philp Roth, Salman Rushdie and José Saramago falling at the longlist stage, the rest of the shortlist is made up of novels in...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 12, 2010 Author: Richard Lea Tags: Impac prize Awards and prizes Books Marilynne Robinson fiction Culture guardian.co.uk News
Interview with neuroscientist Merlin Donald on digital books
TeleRead contributor Matt Hayler has published an email interview with well-known neuroscientist and researcher Merlin Wilfred Donald,(pictured) on Matt’s blog. This is the portion of the interview that deals with digital books:
Q: Many commentators seem remarkably resistant to the digitisation of texts, if not for the ‘natively-digital’ work of blogging, and online journals and magazines, (though detractors are certainly out there, notably Mark Helprin, and Andrew Keen), then certainly for previously print-only works, particularly bound paper books. The totemic examples here are perhaps Roger Darnton, and Sve...
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TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home - April 12, 2010 Author: Paul Biba Tags: Matt Hayler Paul Biba e-books ebooks Merlin Donald neuroscience
IA Summit 10 - Richard Saul Wurman Keynote
This year marks the 11th annual Information Architecture Summit. Our theme is meant to inspire everyone in the community—even those who aren’t presenting or volunteering—to bring their best ideas to the table.
As busy practitioners, we rarely have the chance to step back and think about the future of our field—we’re too busy resolving day-to-day issues. By gathering and sharing practical solutions for everyday challenges, we can create more breathing room to plan for what’s to come.
Subscribe to the Boxes and Arrows Podcast in iTunes or add this page to your Del.icio.us account:
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Boxes and Arrows - April 12, 2010 Tags: Big Ideas Forerunners Podcasts
Turning Pages
Sven Birkerts has been developing a critique of "electronic media" for quite a long time, publishing The Gutenberg Elegies in 1994, well before the rise of blogs, stand-alone news sites, and critical webzines, so his cyber skepticism is not to be dismissed as simply more defensive posturing by an endangered gatekeeper. I have myself taken issue with some of Birkerts's more uninformed outbursts, but his concern for "unhurried" reading is usually expressed in an equally unhurried analysis of the act of reading (specifically reading fiction), not as the high dudgeon of a book critic protesting his immi...
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The Reading Experience - April 12, 2010 Author: Daniel Green Tags: Art and Culture
[News and Notes] Monster Mashup
Abraham Lincoln, the vampire slayer? Yes, America’s 16th president is the hero of the newest book by Seth Grahame-Smith, bestselling author of monster mashup fiction.What is a mashup novel? Camille at camillereads.com explains:"Mash up novels are novels which combine the stories of classics (usually public domain) with anything. The 'anything' tends to be monsters, zombies, sea monsters, androids, werewolves, vampires.... "If you are familiar with classic novels you might giggle at the clever mashup titles, but I'll warn you that the book covers are a bit gory.Camille lists a few mashup novels on her blog.Have you read a...
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Memphis Reads - April 12, 2010 Author: Darletha
Friends of the Library Book Sale April 20 & 21
The Annual Friends of the Library Used Book Sale will be held on April 20 and 21, in The Grille. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on April 20 and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 21. The book sale features a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction works in hardcover and paperback selling for $1 each. Proceeds from the sale will go to the Friends of the Library, which provides such services as free coffee to students in the library during finals week.
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Schurz Library News - April 12, 2010 Author: Julie Elliott Tags: Events
Southlake Public Library Blog
1400 Main Street, Suite 130Southlake, Texas 76092Phone: (817) 748-8243http://www.southlakelibrary.org/"A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it." ~William Styron, American novelistThe New Shelf is stocked with more books than I've seen on it in a while. Run in now while you can and get that book you've been waiting for! fiction HARDCOVERThe HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.) A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s Mississippi.Call #: F STOCAUGHT, by Harlan Coben. (Dutton, $27.95.) A suburban girl goes missing.Call #: F COBDE...
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Your Southlake - April 12, 2010 Author: Southlake
Reading is FUNdamental. Or something. Whatevs.
I find that, perhaps because of my profession or because my home has enough books to provide structural support, people tend to assume that I will agree with the sentiment "But at least they are reading!" For the record, I don't. I don't see any intrinsic value in reading, per se. I know plenty of people who read and gain nothing from it. I know plenty of people who spend substantially more time online or watching television and gain as much from those tasks as others do from reading, or more. Here's what I do see value in:The mechanics of reading: I'll readily admit that the mechanics of being able to read, basic literacy...
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Ramblings on Librarianship, Technology, and Academia - April 11, 2010 Tags: education literary criticism teaching literature accessibility children ' s literature buffy
Lorrie Moore talks about A Gate at the Stairs | Interview
With her new novel, A Gate at the Stairs, high in the US charts and longlisted for the Orange prize, Lorrie Moore talks about her trademark black humour, middle age – and Rooney's chances in the World Cup"Time," says Lorrie Moore. "It's always been a struggle for time. Look." She points across the room, past piles of her teenage son's sports gear. "There's my Christmas tree." A tiny Norfolk spruce sits in a pot on the windowsill, oppressed with some outsize tinselly stars. "I didn't have time to get a real tree – though of course it is a real tree – or even to take down the tree I actually got. It's always been a st...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 10, 2010 Author: Robert McCrum Tags: Lorrie Moore Books fiction Culture Orange prize for fiction The Observer Interviews
Literary critics scan the brain to find out why we love to read
'Neuro lit crit' is the study of how great writing affects the hard wiring inside our heads. But can we decode the artistic impulse?It is the cutting edge of literary studies, a rapidly expanding field that is blending scientific processes with the study of literature and other forms of fiction. Some have dubbed it "the science of reading" and it is shaking up the one of the most esoteric and sometimes impenetrable corners of academia. Forget structuralism or even post-structuralist deconstructionism. "Neuro lit crit" is where it's at.Later this year a group of 12 students in New England will be given a series of specially...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 10, 2010 Author: Paul Harris, Alison Flood Tags: Psychology Art Literacy World news The Observer Science
All That Follows by Jim Crace | Book review
For his latest novel, Jim Crace has bravely attempted to write a thriller, with decidedly mixed results, says Adam Mars-JonesThe knight, despite its eccentric progress, can reach every square on the chess board without going back on itself – and that's the best I can do, in terms of finding an image for Jim Crace's literary career. Crace, born in 1946 and so a contemporary of Julian Barnes, a little older than Ian McEwan and Martin Amis, made his mark later than those three, with Continent (1986), which used the refractory form of the linked set of stories. Since then, every move has been oblique in terms of genre and se...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 10, 2010 Author: Adam Mars-Jones Tags: fiction Books Culture Jim Crace The Observer Reviews
Illustrado by Miguel Syjuco | Book review
Miguel Syjuco's Illustrado was a mere manuscript when it won the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008, says Hermione HobyThe debut novel from 33-year-old Miguel Syjuco won the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008 when it was a mere manuscript: Syjuco pronounced himself "gobsmacked" and Illustrado was snapped up. Spanning 150 years of Philippine history, the novel begins with the body of a leading literary figure being pulled from the Hudson river. His young acolyte is unconvinced by a verdict of suicide and investigates the writer's death – and, through his poetry, stories and the mystery of a missing manuscript – his life. T...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 10, 2010 Author: Hermione Hoby Tags: fiction Books Culture The Observer Features
Willia, Skidelsky | David Mitchell: The magician of modern Fiction
His books are the subject of much academic dissection, yet they're bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic and he has a new one on the wayDavid Mitchell, I'm willing to wager, is the only British novelist under 50 whose work has had an academic conference dedicated to it. Taking place over two days at St Andrews last September, the David Mitchell Conference featured papers by more than 20 scholars, including such treats as "Writing Inside/Out: Genre and David Mitchell's Paratext" and "Hypertext, Palimpsest and the Virtual Text: Tracing the Digital in David Mitchell's Ghostwritten".If you knew nothing about Mitchell other...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 10, 2010 Author: William Skidelsky Tags: Books David Mitchell The Observer Features Resources Profiles From the Observer
Debut Fiction | Book reviews
A revenge fantasy, a little boy lost and an impressive first novel from an actress-turned-writer enthrall Mary Fitzgerald"Don't you know that every immigrant tale is a comic romance?" challenges one of the many voices in Marilyn Chin's fierce, enchanting debut, Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen (Hamish Hamilton £12.99). A "Manifesto in 41 Tales," this trailblazing novel charts the loves and adventures of twin sisters Moonie and Mei Ling, raised by their indomitable grandmother, who runs the Double Happiness Restaurant in Piss River, Oregon.In one sense, this story of impoverished Chinese immigrants, who work in a restaurant s...
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Guardian Unlimited Books - April 10, 2010 Author: Mary Fitzgerald Tags: fiction Books Culture Emily Woof The Observer Reviews
