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Costa Book of the Year Award 2015 goes to a Young Adult book

For the second time in it’s 45 year history the Costa Book of the Year Award (chosen from the five category winners announced a few weeks ago) goes to a children’s book. Part detective story, part mystery and part historical fiction, The Lie Tree written by Frances Hardinge follows Faith, a bright 14 year old girl with an interest in science, unearthing the truth about her father’s mysterious death. Plenty of Victorian girl power, perfect for teenage girls and, I’m sure, boys too. Philip Pullman is the only other children’s author to win this prize, so maybe that says something.

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Not to be missed: BBC’s adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace

For those of you that have access to BBC One, don’t miss its War and Peace series that started last Sunday. I watched it last night on the Iplayer and enjoyed every second of this lavish costume drama. BBC at its absolute best! Can’t wait for tomorrow’s second episode. For those without access to BBC One, don’t despair, the series has been sold widely and is bound to show up in your country too. Now I’m building up courage to tackle the book itself…

War and Peace on BBC One

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She does it again! Kate Atkinson wins the Costa Prize for the third time

Kate Atkinson won the Costa Novel Award 2015 earlier this week for the novel A God in Ruins. Not bad considering she’s won the prize twice before: in 2013 for Life After Life and in 1995 for Behind the Scenes at the Museum. A God in Ruins follows Teddy, one of the characters from Life After Life, and his struggle to live a ‘normal’ life after his career as an RAF pilot during the Second World War.

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Best Books of 2015

The best books of 2015 lists are being published in the newspapers these days and I have collected the best of the ‘best lists’. I don’t necessarily agree with all their choices, but there are lots of interesting books here.

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Feeling academic? Here’s a list of reading about reading

A list doesn’t come more high-brow than this. If you’ve ever had the urge to get to the bottom of understanding books this offers an excellent selection of literature for you. No light beach reads here, but enough to keep you going for years and come out a scholar, and probably enjoy reading even more. Go on and tackle the literary heavyweights: Roland Barthes, Lucian Freud, Harold Bloom, James Wood, Michel Foucault etc.

So You Think You’re a Literary Critic? 19 Books for Understanding Literature by Richard Davies

 

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Better World Book – saving the world, one book at a time

We are excited to have discovered this marvellous online site. “You buy. We donate” is their catchphrase. New and old books are available for free delivery around the world and for every book you buy, they donate one onwards (while endearingly thanking you profusely), enabling and enriching libraries in poorer countries. It has become our first port of call for online books. With £14 million raised for libraries and nearly 200 million books recycled, how can you not like it?

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A brave choice! A Brief History of Seven Killings wins the Booker Prize 2015

A few years after being accused of dumbing down in its selection of books, the Booker Prize is back and kicking! Expanding the prize from British and Commonwealth writers to include all fiction written in English and published in the U.K. was a stroke of genius (courtesy of the Folio Prize, I might add), and has made the list that much more adventurous.

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Svetlana Alexievich – Winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature

Haven’t heard of her either? At least this year, there might be a reason for it. Unusually, the winner is a writer of mostly non-fiction. Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich has documented the life stories of suffering in the Second World War, during and in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster and the Soviet War in Afghanistan. Her books are based on interviews with thousands of people who have lived through these events as explained by Alexievich herself:

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