Mandel, Prose nab Goodreads fiction awards

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This article was published 31/12/2022 (1369 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two Canadian writers are among the recipients of 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards, a series of reader-voted awards covering a number of genres of adult fiction and non-fiction, as well as books for young readers.

Toronto writer Nita Prose earned the most votes in the mystery/thriller category to take that award with her debut novel, The Maid.

In science fiction, the winning book was Sea of Tranquility, by British Columbia-born, New York-based Emily St. John Mandel. The time-travel epic is in part a sequel to her earlier novel The Glass Hotel. Like that book, it’s partially set on Vancouver Island. The runner-up in that category was also by a Canadian writer, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Daughter of Doctor Moreau.

If you want to feel really old, consider that the winning book in the historical fiction category, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Carrie Soto Is Back, is set in the 1990s.

The full list is available at wfp.to/ST7.

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Canada’s oldest family-run book distributor, Thomas Allen & Son, will close in March, with another Canadian firm taking over distribution of many of the publishing companies it represents.

Founded in 1916, Thomas Allen & Son published authors including Nellie McClung, Stephen Leacock and William Lyon Mackenzie King in its first 50 years, then got out of the publishing side of the book business for several decades.

Starting in 2000, a renewed publishing division, Thomas Allen Publishers, published 120 books by authors including Austin Clarke, Esi Edugyan, David Gilmour and Leon Rooke, including two winners of the Giller Prize and two Governor-General’s Award winners. In 2012, the company sold its publishing arm to Dundurn Press.

Ontario-based Firefly Books will take over distribution of many of Thomas Allen & Son’s remaining clients and will retain many of the firm’s core staff members.

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It’s common practice to start a new year with a to-do list. For some Texas Republicans, one item on that list is making it harder for kids to read.

One of the proposed bills for consideration when the Texas Legislature reconvenes in January would require publishers to create an “age-appropriate” rating system for books. The age rating would have to be featured on the covers of books.

More worrisome still, according to Publishers Weekly: as proposed, the bill would give the state the power to overrule publishers if legislators disagree with a book’s age rating.

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A new prize for books in translation, intended to expand and enrich literary culture “by bringing world literature to English-language readers,” has announced its first-ever list of nominees.

The U.S. National Book Critics Circle announced the first long list for its Barrios Book in Translation Prize this month, featuring 12 books translated from 10 languages. The winning book will be announced in March.

Among the 12 nominees are The Books of Jacob, by Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft, and the graphic novel Walk Me to the Corner by Anneli Furmark, translated from Swedish by Hanna Strömberg, published by Montreal-based graphic publisher Drawn & Quarterly.

The full list can be found at wfp.to/STG.

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Winnipeg author/lawyer Zilla Jones has two short stories in the running for the annual short fiction contest held by the Fiddlehead, a prominent literary journal published in New Brunswick.

The journal unveiled the short list for its $2,000 fiction contest this month and will announce the winners Jan. 5. Jones’ stories, Do Not be a Statistic and World of Blues, were among 14 finalists in the national competition.

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The long-running poetry open mic Speaking Crow kicks off another year Jan. 3 with a Zoom evening hosted by Winnipeg poet and memoirist Sally Ito.

The free event runs 7 to 8:30 p.m., with participants able to sign up for three-minute reading blocks for poetry or spoken word.

To register, see wfp.to/STH.

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