Sue Grimshaw, buyer for romances at Borders for the past 7 years, was awarded the 2008 Vivian Stephens Industry Award from RWA. This was announced a week or so ago when the RITA nominations were announced.
Grimshaw is a voracious reader of romance as well as general fiction and mystery. She devours a [...]

FICTION: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)
DRAMA: August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
HISTORY: What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)
BIOGRAPHY: Eden’s Outcasts by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)
POETRY: Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins)
POETRY: Failure by Philip [...]

The Board approved the following 2008 Award Recipients:

RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award – Vicki Lewis Thompson (this used to be the Lifetime Achievement Award but was renamed to the Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award)

RWA Emma Merritt Service Award – Linda Winstead Jones

RWA Service Award – Jill Limber, Nicole Burnham

RWA Vivian Stephens Industry Award [...]

Essence held its first annual Literary Award ceremony last night. The Storyteller of the Year Award was given to LA Banks, author of the Vampire Huntress series. The Storyteller of the Year award is voted on by the ESSENCE readers.
It has awarded the The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson its first ever Essence Literary [...]

Barnes & Noble listed the following finalists for their 2007 Discover Great New Writers Awards:
Fiction

Matthew Eck, author of The Farther Shore (Milkweed Editions)
Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown)
Vendela Vida, author of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your [...]

Orson Scott Card was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award by the Young Adult Library Services Association. The Association’s decision to honor Card for “helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world” is controversial given the anti-gay tone of some of [...]

Mills & Boons sweeps the Romantic Novelists’ Association Awards shortlist for category romance. The nominated titles include:

The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella - Liz Fielding
Driving him Wild - Julie Cohen
Her Parenthood Assignment - Fiona Harper
English Lord, Ordinary Lady - Fiona Harper
The Mediterranean Rebel’s Bride - Lucy Gordon
Breakfast at Giovanni’s - Kate Hardy

The [...]

Jayne and I have a great fondness for e published books. Since the inception of this blog, we have been reading and reviewing books that are published by houses which specialize in releasing books in the e format. We thought that it would be nice to do a little 2007 retrospective on the [...]

Minneapolis, Minnesota, population 372811, was named 2007’s Most Literate City. The methodology used by Central Connecticut State University includes only cities with a population in excess of 250,000 according to the US Census Data as of July 1, 2006. The study calculates the ranking based on newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, [...]

Essence magazine is hosting its first annual literary awards. Storyteller of the Year award is determined by reader vote and the other eight categories are determined by a panel of publishing folks. The awards ceremony will be held in NY on February 7, 2008 and hosted by Hoda Kotb and Dr. Ian Smith. [...]

Yesterday, Normal Mailer was the winner of the 14th annual Bad Sex writing award, announced by Literary Review magazine. His winning entry was:
So Klara turned head to foot, and put her most unmentionable part down on his hard-breathing nose and mouth, and took his old battering ram into her lips. Uncle was now as [...]

New York Times posted its Notable 100 books for 2007. The print version is released on Sunday. I have nothing to say since I’ve not read a one of them, not even JK Rowling’s 7th Harry Potter book.

Publishers Weekly announced its list of top books of the year 2007 for various categories including fiction, science fiction/fantasy, and romance. To say I am out of step with the critical media is to put it mildly. I sometimes wonder why that is.
Weirdly all the genre suspense and thrillers were [...]

Harper Lee published just one book but it was a classic. To Kill a Mockingbird is the biggest selling novel of all time according to Guinness Book of World Records and was awarded the Pulitizer Prize in 1961. It is the number one book that every adult should read before they die [...]

The NBCC is pretty much anti blog so I won’t be nominating myself (and I certainly don’t deserve to be nominated either) but the National Book Critics Circle is accepting nominations for the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing (yes, Dorothy, there is a prize for everything). You must be a [...]

The Quill Award Nominees were announced last week at BEA. There are 18 categories with 5 nominees each. The nominees are chosen by the selection committee comprised of Publishers Weekly editors (which begs the question as to why they aren’t simply the PW Awards?). In any event, the September 10th to October [...]

Book Chronicle, a ezine or blog dedicated to book nerds, has announced its first annual lit blogging awards called the Litty. Dear Author is one of the finalists. How we got on the list or what award we’ll win, if any, remains to be seen. However, any award that rhymes with Man [...]

Best Romance of the Year: Lover Awakened: A Novel Of The Black Dagger Brotherhood, JR. Ward
Worst Read: On the Way to the Wedding (Avon Historical Romance), Julia Quinn
Best New Author: Elizabeth Hoyt
Best Buried Treasure: Jacob: The Nightwalkers, Jacquelyn Frank
Best European Historical: Devil in Winter (Wallflower Quartet, Bk. 3), Lisa Kleypas
Best Medieval: [...]

The PNR PEARL Awards Paranoramal Excellence Award for Romantic Literature) for 2006.
Best ANTHOLOGY: My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding by Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Lori Handeland, Rachel Caine and more…
Best FANTASY/MAGICAL: Master of Swords (Berkley Sensation) by Angela Knight
Best FUTURISTIC: Ghost Hunter by Jayne Castle
Best SHORT STORY/NOVELLA: Faery Good Advice (IN [...]