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Though the book awards season has hit a bit of a slump after the landslide of National Book awards, Man Booker Prize, and Nobel this fall, there are still a few awards trickling through. Here are a couple of recent notable ones. The Poetry Society of America named Marilyn Nelson the winner of the 2012 [...]

As reported by Jill Lawless (Lucy, your long-lost sister is a reporter!) in the Associated Press, the brand-new Hatchet Job of the Year Award will celebrate “the angriest, funniest, most trenchant” book review of 2011. The winner will receive a year’s supply of something called potted shrimp (courtesy of the Fish Society)—so you know the [...]

It’s always a pleasure to check out the judging panel for each year’s Eisner Awards (if you don’t know what those are, they’re often referred to as the Oscars of the comics industry). In recent years, more and more people associated with the library world have been on this panel, and this year is no [...]

If you have anything remotely to do with kids’ lit in Chicago, get your butt over to the Harold Washington branch of the Chicago Public Library on Wednesday, November 16, from 6 to 8pm in the Pritzer Auditorium, to experience the madness that is the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, the first in what is planned [...]

This year’s Chicago Tribune Book Prizes were awarded this weekend at the Chicago Humanities Festival. The Literary Prize went to Stephen Sondheim, renowned musical theater lyricist. The Heartland Prize, given to one nonfiction and one fiction author, awards works “embodying the spirit of the nation’s heartland.” Here are the winners! Freedom By Jonathan Franzen The [...]

Amid much ballyhoo over judging criteria, Julian Barnes has emerged the winner of this year’s Booker Prize for his novel, The Sense of an Ending (keep your eyes peeled for the Booklist review in our November 15th issue of this year).

It’s time to get your bets down on the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Ladbrokes, the U.K. gambling company that posts odds on just about everything, sees the favorites this way: Syrian poet Adonis is the favorite at 4-1, with Swedish author Thomas Transtromer at 9-2, Thomas Pynchon at 10-1, and Haruki Murakami [...]

Although Booklist has enthusiastically reviewed books by the newly designated MacArthur “genius” long form journalist Peter Hessler, most recently, Country Driving: A Journey through China from Farm to Factory, this year’s MacArthur Fellows include only one instantly recognizable literary name, that of poet Kay Ryan, a former poet laureate. I’ll never forget the first time I [...]

The 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowship winners have been announced by the Poetry Foundation and Poetry Magazine. These five winners were selected from thousands to receive not only the honor of winning, but a grant to continue studying and writing poetry. All of the winners will be featured in the November issue of Poetry. These poets [...]

The Crime Writer’s Association will announce the winners for this year’s Gold Dagger award on October 7th. If the suspense is killing you, here is the shortlist in the meantime. Follow the links to find out what Booklist has to say about some of the nominated titles. CWA Gold Dagger shortlist: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter [...]