Guardian First Book Award

The winner of the Guardian First Book Award for 2008 has been annnounced:

"Resounding Guardian first book award victory for The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross's much acclaimed history of 20th century music is undisputed winner of the 2008 prize."

Ooh, you're good, kiwidoc...

My brother bought me this for my birthday but I still haven't quite dared to start it....

Thanks for highlighting this. The Rest Is Noise looks good, and I haven't heard of it before. (Why haven't I heard of it before?)

Fantastic! I've already ordered it for my uncle for Xmas.

I have had this book for a while - it has been quite a prominently displayed book in the non-fiction section of my local. I just haven't tackled it yet.

Here is Alex Ross talking to the Claire Armitstead of the Guardian if you are interested.

#2 Flossie: I don't think you need to read it all straight through. A chapter every so often would be quite sufficient.

Thanks to FlossieT for mentioning that the longlist for the 2009 award was announced today. The £10,000 winner will be decided in December.

The Secret Lives of Buildings by Edward Hollis

Direct Red by Gabriel Weston

The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo

A Swamp Full of Dollars by Michael Peel

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey

The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw

The Selected Works of TS Spivet by Reif Larsen

An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

The Missing (Salt Modern Poets) by Sian Hughes

Guardian first book award longlist takes in sex, death and quantum mechanics

The shortlist for this year's award was announced today:

A Swamp Full of Dollars by Michael Peel

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey

The Selected Works of TS Spivet by Reif Larsen

An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

Fiction resurgent in Guardian first book award shortlist

An Elegy for Easterly, the collection of short stories by Petina Gappah is this year's winner of the Guardian First Book Award. It is a collection of short stories set in Zimbabwe; here is an excerpt from the book's cover:

"In her spirited debut collection, the Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah brings us the resliience and inventiveness of the people who struggle to live under Robert Mugabe's regime. She takes us across the city of Harare, from the townships beset by power cuts to the manicured lawns of privilege and corruption, where wealthy husbands keep their first wives in the "big houses" while their unofficial second wives wait in the "small houses," hoping for a promotion.

"Despite their circumstances, the characters in An Elegy for Easterly are more than victims—they are all too human, with as much capacity to inflict pain as to endure it. They struggle with the larger issues common to all people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams, and the yearning for something to anchor them to life."

Today's Guardian features several articles about the book and Ms. Gappah, who is an international trade lawyer living in Geneva, and includes a video of the award ceremony and an audio excerpt of the author reading one of the stories.

Petina Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly wins Guardian First Book Award 2009

I'm really intrigued by this - I read An Elegy for Easterly earlier this year, and although it was good, it was a bit uneven. Some stories were really powerful, but there were weak spots.

On the other hand, she's really impressive in person - I heard her speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival (along with Brian Chikwava, actually!). She's hoping her first novel will be published next year.

The longlist for this year's Guardian First Book Award was announced earlier today. Ten books were chosen (five fiction, four non-fiction, one poetry) for the £10,000 award. The shortlist for this year's prize will be announced in late October, with the winner revealed at the beginning of December.

Fiction

Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman
Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam
Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

Non-fiction

Bomber County: The Lost Airmen of World War Two by Daniel Swift
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz
Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris
Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir by Basharat Peer

Poetry

The Floating Man by Katharine Towers

Guardian first book award longlist ranges around the world

The shortlist for this year's award has been announced:

Fiction

Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman
Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

Non-fiction

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz
Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris

The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced on 1 December.

Guardian first book award shortlist revealed

Just to update this thread with the winner - see the comments on the shortlist and the winner's reaction here

Being Wrong looks like a very interesting read, and I noticed that the esteemed Richard Holmes talks about this book on the above video. One book I should read, as I am wrong alot of the time!

Sounds interesting; thanks for posting, Karen.

The process of picking a winner of the 2011 Guardian First Book Award is now underway.

The longlist is due to be announced later in August, but the first book that will feature on that list has already been revealed.

During July, publishers submitted 136 debut novels for consideration, but one place on the longlist was reserved for a book selected by the public that did not feature in the list put forward by publishers. Of the books recommended the judges have selected Down The Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos. The book has been published by the new, small imprint And Other Stories and tells the story of a Latin American drug baron's son growing up in a luxury hideout surrounded by guns, hit men and dealers, longing for a pygmy hippopotamus for his private zoo. Sounds intriguing!

Nine other books will join Down The Rabbit Hole on the longlist.

The longlist for the 2011 Guardian First Book Award is now been revealed in full. It consists of ten books in all: six novels, one book of poetry and three works on non-fiction. The books are:

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
The Submission by Amy Waldman
The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed
The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Down The Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos

Sidereal by Rachael Boast

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones
The Possessed by Elif Batuman

Not read any of these myself, but I am planning to read Down The Rabbit Hole shortly. I was intrigued by what I'd heard about this book, and the publishing model being used by new startup, And Other Stories. Pigeon English has been longlisted for this year's Man Booker Prize. The Emperor of All Maladies has also won a Pulitzer, but I've not heard of the others. Brief details can be found via the link below, and some of the novels do sound like they may be interesting reads.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/31/guardian-first-book-award-longlist

Thanks for posting this list, geocroc. I've read three books from the longlist: The Emperor of All Maladies, which was one of my favorite nonfiction books of 2010, The Collaborator, and Pigeon English. I'll read The Submission this month, probably on or around 9/11, and I'll be on the lookout for Down the Rabbit Hole.

I've read The Possessed and thought it nearly devoid of content. I wondered whether Elif Batuman's fame stemmed from her television appearances. But many people seem to be mentioning it in high regard.

Robert

The five books shortlisted for this year's Guardian First Book Award have today been revealed. It includes the 'reader's choice' from the longlist plus a Booker shortlisted novel. The books on the shortlist are:

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Down The Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos
The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed
The Submission by Amy Waldman

Wow...I've read all five of these books already! Here's how I would rank them:

1. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer: the only nonfiction book on the list, which was one of my favorite nonfiction books of 2010
2. The Collaborator: excellent novel set in Kashmir in the 1990s
3. The Submission: the best post-9/11 novel I've read
4. Pigeon English: one of the better books on this year's Booker Prize longlist, although the pigeon was just weird
5. Down the Rabbit Hole: the only book on this list that I was lukewarm about, an odd novella about the young son of a Mexican drug lord who desires a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia

I've reviewed each book on LT, BTW.

kidzdoc, good call. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer won.

Yay!

The process to find this year’s winner of The Guardian First Book Award has been underway for some weeks now. Back in May, on its website, The Guardian called for reader recommendations for a possible contender for the tenth title to grace the longlist. From the suggestions The Guardian will pick one to join the nine other longlisted books for the judges to consider.

This reader nomination process first occurred last year and led to the longlisting of Down The Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos.

Since 11 July The Guardian website has been featuring reader reviews of the eleven eligible books that were nominated for the tenth book. The identity of book 10 was due to be revealed in late July, although as of the first weekend of August it has still to be announced, so I assume it is imminent. The eleven books nominated are shown below, and just to stress this is not the longlist, more of a preliminary heat. Nevertheless, it does flag some potentially good books from smaller publishers that might not have been on everyone's radar.

Pelt by Sarah Jackson
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
The Marble Orchard by Sandeep Parmar
Grosse Fugue by Ian Phillips
Dead Men by Richard Pierce
Everything’s Fine by Socrates Adams
Everything Speaks In Its Own Way by Kate Tempest
Precocious by Adam Lowe
Madame Mephisto by A M Bakalar
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of The Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
The Festival of Wild Orchid by Ann-Margaret Lim

Wow! The only one of these I've heard of is The Snow Child!

>25 TinaV95: Same here.

You are both ahead of me. I hadn't heard of any of them before this. Hate to admit it, though.

Not surprised nobody's heard of these. Don't forget these are books nominated by Guardian readers, with the deliberate aim of capturing lesser known works. I suspect the longlist, once out, will have books we might of heard of, and ones from the bigger publishers. It proved useful last year for Down The Rabbit Hole, published by the then new start-up And Other Stories. They've since found themselves on the Booker longlist with Swimming Home.

Sarah Jackson's debut poetry collection Pelt was announced as the book nominated by readers for the Guardian First Book Award longlist:

Readers nominate Sarah Jackson for Guardian first book award

You beat me to it kidzdoc! Just to add that the full longlist is due to be revealed in late August.

Here we go, the longlist is now out. There's eleven books in total, as usual a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. The list includes one book of poetry which was the Guardian readers' nomination.

FICTION
The China Factory by Mary Costello
Absolution by Patrick Flanery
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

NON-FICTION
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
The Origins of Sex by Faramerz Dabhoiwala
Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution by Lindsey Hilsum

READERS' CHOICE
Pelt by Sarah Jackson

Not seen or heard about many of these. The Art of Fielding is probably the one that has the highest profile so far, although I have seen The Lifeboat and Behind The Beautiful Forevers in bookshops recently.

The shortlist for the 2012 Guardian First Book Award has now been revealed. The books are:

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution by Lindsey Hilsum
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

So three works of fiction and two non-fiction books. The winner is due to be announced on November 29.
Further details here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/08/guardian-first-book-award-2012-short...

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers has won The Guardian First Book Award 2012.

The longlist for this year's award was announced today, which consists of five non-fiction books, five novels, and one poetry collection:

Fiction:
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names
Gil Hornby, The Hive
Hannah Kent, Burial Rites
Lottie Moggach, Kiss Me First
Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart

Non-fiction:
Stephen Emmott, 10 Billion
Shereen El Feki, Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World
Steven Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves
Felix Martin, Money: The Unauthorised Biography
Polly Morland, The Society of Timid Souls

Poetry:
Claire Trévien, The Shipwrecked House

The novels by Bulawayo and Ryan were also selected for this year's Booker Prize longlist.

The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced in November. More info: Guardian first book award 2013 longlist combines sex and psychoanalysis

I always enjoy nickelini's opinions of covers. I wonder what she thinks of this cover of Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach.

I don't care for it at all. I'll probably have nightmares tonight :-)

Well . . . aesthetically speaking, I don't think much of it. It looks slapped together. Took the graphic designer, oh, 15 minutes to line everything up? I haven't read the book or even know what it's about, so I don't know if the symbolism is fitting or clever. But it has a gratuitous look and feel to it. Mind you, the lips and skin don't appear human, so a wasp (or is it a bee? not sure) crawling on a mannequin (or a doll) is really pretty benign, isn't it. I'd call this a fail, from several angles. But that's without reading the book. Who knows, it could be a brilliant image. Still, it looks like some guy from accounting (who doesn't have much luck with the opposite sex) crammed it all together.

Edited to add: Hello! What's with the bottoms and tops of the letters being chopped off by the photo. Is that supposed to say "this is so edgy, we chop off bits of letters"? No. It doesn't. It says "I have no artistic sense whatsoever."

#34 The only one I've read of these is The Examined Life and I would be disappointed if it won the prize. Will have to look for some of the other books.

Horrible cover!

36> I wish I could give your cover review a thumbs up. "Still, it looks like some guy from accounting (who doesn't have much luck with the opposite sex) crammed it all together." is hilarious!

The "bee-stung lips" phrase always annoys me, even without a visual image. I suppose it's possible that as well as the author, the cover designer is also a first-timer.

Black and red covers remind me of Twilight books and therefore are not of interest to me. In addition, this one was grating.

Black and red covers remind me of Twilight books and therefore are not of interest to me. In addition, this one was grating.

Good point. Black and red covers also remind me of the True Crime books--I always know when I walk into that section of the library or bookstore because ALL the covers are black and almost all of the writing is red.

Love what you said Nickelini about that cover - it is nasty. I noticed the top/bottom sliced lettering which I found quite troubling somehow as well. Very amused also by your comment on the Accounts guy - probably 100% spot on!

For what it's worth - I've been stung on the lip by a wasp before and it isn't very sexy at all!

ETA - Is the Moggach cover a self-published job?

I have We Need New Names sitting in my TBR pile, maybe I'll start it next. I read The Society of Timid Souls and didn't like it nearly as much as I anticipated I would. Win some, lose some.

I agree with the comments about the cover. It's nothing I'd be drawn to pick up to see if I'd like it.

That appears to be the American cover. The UK cover is a lot less amateurish. But, not really any less boring.

(Can't seem to embed it like the other cover, but you can see it on Amazon.co.uk)

Guardian first book award 2013 short list:

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki (Chatto & Windus)
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (Picador)
Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach (Picador)
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (Doubleday)

The winner will be announced on 28 November 2013.

And the winner is Donal Ryan for The Spinning Heart.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/28/guardian-first-book-prize-2013-dona...

I see that the longlist for this year's Guardian First Book Award. As in previous years this is a mix of fiction and non-fiction and one of the books is selected from nominations provided into the Guardian website.

FICTION
Young Skins by Colin Barrett
In The Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
After Me Comes The Flood by Sarah Perry
We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas

NON-FICTION
The Iceberg by Marian Coutts
Bricks and Mortals by Tom Wilkinson
Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
American Interior by Gruff Rhys

READERS' CHOICE
Thing To Make And Break by Mary-Lan Tan

The longlist for the 2015 Guardian first book award has 10 Books:

The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink
Grief Is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter
The Fisherman by Chigozie Obioma
The Shore by Sara Taylor
Mrs Engels byGavin McCrea
Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume
Man v Nature by Diane Cook
Physical by Andrew McMillan
The Fish Ladder by Katharine Norbury
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev

This year’s winner will be announced in late November.

The Guardian First Book Award is no more.

Saying goodbye to the Guardian first book award

BTW, Physical by Andrew McMillan was the winner of last year's award.