Jackie Kay wins Scottish Book of the Year

Poet and author, Jackie Kay, has been awarded the 2011 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year, in partnership with Creative Scotland, for her autobiography Red Dust Road

PA Bulletin 30th August 2011 (UK)

PA Bulletin 30th August 2011, from The Publishers Association, UK, is now available online #publisher #publishing

"Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist"

Who are the most ruthless capitalists in the western world? Whose monopolistic practices make Walmart look like a corner shop and Rupert Murdoch a socialist? You won't guess the answer in a month of Sundays. While there are plenty of candidates, my vote goes not to the banks, the oil companies or the health insurers, but – wait for it – to academic publishers. Theirs might sound like a fusty and insignificant sector. It is anything but. Of all corporate scams, the racket they run is most urgently in need of referral to the competition authorities - George Monbiot. The Guardian

"10 Reasons Dick Cheney's New Book Belongs in the Crime Section (And What You Can Do to Get it There)"

Alternet: "Peace activists around the country are stealthily gearing up to visit bookstores, grab a stack of books, and deposit them where they belong"

2011 ReLit shortlists announced (Canada)

The shortlists for the 2011 ReLit awards have been announced. The annual awards recognize books published by Canadian independent literary presses. Winners will be announced at the Ottawa International Writers’ Festival in October. The nominees are as follows:

Novel

* The Cube People, Christian McPherson (Nightwood Editions)
* Book, Ken Sparling (Pedlar Press)
* Blood Relatives, Craig Francis Power (Pedlar)
* The Find, Kathy Page (McArthur & Company)
* Krakow Melt, Daniel Allen Cox (Arsenal Pulp Press)
* The Goon, Jerrod Edson (Oberon Press)
* The Bourgeois Empire, Evie Christie (ECW Press)
* One Bloody Thing After Another, Joey Comeau (ECW)
* Good Evening, Central Laundromat, Jason Heroux (Quattro Books)
* Sweet England, Steve Weiner (New Star Books)

Short Fiction

* The Devil You Know, Jenn Farrell (Anvil Press)
* Ravenna Gets, Tony Burgess (Anvil)
* I'm a Registered Nurse Not a Whore, Anne Perdue (Insomniac Press)
* Bats or Swallows, Teri Vlassopoulos (Invisible Publishing)
* There is No Other, Jonathan Papernick (Exile Press)
* Punishing Ugly Children, Darryl Joel Berger (Killick Press)
* I Still Don't Even Know You, Michelle Berry (Turnstone Press)
* Missed Her, Ivan E. Coyote (Arsenal Pulp)
* Ronald Reagan, My Father, Brian Joseph Davis (ECW)

Poetry

* The Inquisition Yours, Jen Currin (Coach House Books)
* Sweet, Dani Couture (Pedlar)
* Every Day in the Morning (Slow), Adam Seelig (New Star)
* A Good Time Had By All, Meaghan Strimas (Exile)
* The Good News About Armageddon, Steve McOrmond (Brick Books)
* You Know Who You Are, Ian Williams (Wolsak and Wynn)
* Marimba Forever, Jim Christy (Guernica Editions)

2011 Royal Society Young People's Book Prize shortlist

The shortlist for the 2011 Royal Society Young People's Book Prize has been announced:

* The Icky Sticky Snot and Blood Book by Steve Alton and Nick Sharratt (Bodley Head)
* What's the Point of Being Green? by Jacqui Bailey (Franklin Watts)
* How the World Works by Christiane Dorion and illustrated by Beverly Young (Templar Publishing)
* What Mr Darwin Saw by Mick Manning and Brita Granström (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)
* The Story of Astronomy and Space published by Usborne
* What Goes On In My Head by Robert Winston (Dorling Kindersley)

Playwright Sir David Hare wins 2011 PEN/Pinter Prize

This year’s PEN/Pinter Prize is to be awarded to the playwright, Sir David Hare. The judges this year were Hanif Kureishi, Lady Antonia Fraser, Gillian Slovo, Claire Tomalin and Michael Billington. David Hare will be presented with his prize at a public event at the British Library on 10 October. English playwright and theatre and film director David Hare has received huge critical acclaim over the last 40 years. Many of his plays offer a portrait of contemporary Britain and some of his notable works include Plenty (Faber and Faber, 1978),The Absence of War (Faber and Faber, 1993) and The Blue Room ¬(Faber and Faber, 1998). His numerous awards include a BAFTA, a Golden Bear and an Olivier Award. He was knighted in 1998

Stephen King story free for influential Klout users

Scribner will publish an eBook-only edition of Stephen King's new short story "Mile 81." The $2.99 eBook short story also features a free excerpt from Stephen King's next novel 11/22/63, which is slated for release in November. To promote the release, the publisher will team up with the social media measurement site Klout. Scribner will give away free downloads of the story to influencers in Klout's Perks program. In exchange, Klout will encourage these folks to Tweet about the eBook

Give bricks-and-mortar bookselling a future

Faced with the Amazon juggernaut and high rents, bookshops are battling to survive. 'Use them or lose them' is the message

Ngaio Marsh Award 2011

Blood Men by Paul Cleave won the 2011 Ngaio Marsh Award. The award was presented at the "Setting the Stage for Murder" event in Christchurch, New Zealand