Quills Winners, NBA Finalists, Man Booker Winner

The book industry's awards season moved into full swing, with the announcement earlier this week of the winners of the inaugural Quill Book Awards, the finalists for the National Book Awards, and the winner of the U.K.'s Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

The 2005 Quill Book Awards

The first Quill Awards were presented last night at a star-studded, red carpet ceremony at Chelsea Piers in New York City. The event was hosted by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and featured appearances by Jon Stewart and Robert Klein. Among the celebrity presenters were Tony Roberts, Matthew Modine, Kim Cattrall, Candace Bushnell, Erica Jong, Anthony Rapp, Stephen J. Cannell, and Jules Feiffer.

Launched this year by Reed Business Information and the NBC Universal Television Stations, The Quill Awards were created to honor excellence in book publishing. A short list of titles was selected by booksellers and librarians from across the country, who chose from among titles appearing on the Book Sense Picks lists or on Barnes & Noble bestseller lists, or those earning a starred review in Publishers Weekly, among other criteria. Voting on the short list was open to consumers online from August 15 through September 15.

An edited version of the awards ceremony will be broadcast on 14 NBC Universal television stations on Saturday, October 22.

The winners of the 2005 Quill Book Awards are:

Book of the Year: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling, illustrated by Mary GrandPre (Arthur Levine/Scholastic)
Debut Author of the Year: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Little Brown) -- A June 2005 Book Sense Pick
Audiobook: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart and the Writers of the Daily Show (Time Warner AudioBooks)
Biography/Memoir: Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan (S&S)
General Fiction: The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (Viking) -- A May 2005 Book Sense Pick
Children's Illustrated Book: Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook by Shel Silverstein (HarperCollins Children's)
Children's Chapter Book/Middle Grade: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling, illustrated by Mary GrandPre (Arthur Levine/Scholastic)
Young Adult/Teen: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares (Delacorte)
Graphic Novel: Marvel 1602, Volume I by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, and Richard Isanove (Marvel Comics)
Mystery/Suspense/Thriller: Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's)
Poetry: Let America Be America Again: And Other Poems by Langston Hughes (Vintage)
Romance: 44 Cranberry Point by Debbie Macomber (Mira)
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror: The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore (William Morrow) -- A November 2004 Book Sense Pick
Religion/Spirituality: Peace Is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End by Deepak Chopra (Harmony)
Business: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (William Morrow) -- A June 2005 Book Sense Pick
Cooking: Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Get Real Meals: Eat Healthy Without Going to Extremes by Rachael Ray (Clarkson Potter)
Health/Self Improvement: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (Simon Spotlight Entertainment)
History/Current Events/Politics: 1776 by David McCullough (S&S)
Humor: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart and the Writers of the Daily Show (Warner)
Sports: Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King (Scribner)

The complete list of Quills nominees is available at http://news.bookweb.org/read/3708.

2005 National Book Award Finalists Announced

On Wednesday, October 12, the 20 finalists for the 2005 National Book Awards were announced by bestselling author John Grisham at Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner in Oxford, Mississippi. Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books in Oxford as well as the town's mayor, emceed the announcement.

The winners in each of four categories -- Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature -- will be announced at the National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony in Manhattan on November 16. Garrison Keillor will host the dinner. Each winner will receive $10,000 and a bronze statue; each finalist will receive a $1,000 cash award and a bronze medal.

The finalists are:

Fiction

• The March by E.L. Doctorow (Random House)
• Veronica by Mary Gaitskill (Pantheon)
• Trance by Christopher Sorrentino (FSG)
• Holy Skirts by Rene Steinke (William Morrow)
• Europe Central by William T. Vollmann (Viking)

Nonfiction

• Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan Burdick (FSG)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius by Leo Damrosch (Houghton Mifflin)
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf) -- An October 2005 Book Sense Notable
• 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn (Times Books)
• Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin) -- A January 2005 Book Sense Pick

Poetry

• Where Shall I Wander by John Ashbery (Ecco)
• Star Dust: Poems by Frank Bidart (FSG)
• Habitat: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2005 by Brendan Galvin (Louisiana State University Press)
• Migration: New and Selected Poems by W.S. Merwin (Copper Canyon)
• The Moment's Equation by Vern Rutsala (Ashland Poetry Press)

Young People's Literature

• The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (Knopf) -- A Summer 2005 Top Ten Book Sense Children's Pick
• Where I Want to Be by Adele Griffin (Putnam)
• Inexcusable by Chris Lynch (Atheneum)
• Autobiography of My Dead Brother by Walter Dean Myers (HarperTempest)
• Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles (Harcourt) -- A Summer 2005 Top Ten Book Sense Children's Pick

To be eligible for a 2005 National Book Award, a book must have been published in the U.S. between December 1, 2004, and November 30, 2005, and must have been written by a U.S. citizen. This year, the judges chose from a record 1,195 entries submitted by publishers.

"I commend our judges on their brilliant selections," said Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the National Book Foundation, in a prepared statement. "Their selections reflect an astonishing range of subject matter, styles, and voices. After months of intensive reading and discussion, our judges have truly arrived at the best books of the year."

At the National Book Awards ceremony on November 16, the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation will bestow its 2005 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters upon Norman Mailer and the first Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community to writer and bookseller Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Toni Morrison and Jessica Hagedorn, respectively, will present those awards.

For additional information about the 20 finalists and the special events that will take place during "National Book Awards Week," visit www.nationalbook.org.

To read a Bookselling This Week interview with Bury the Chains author Adam Hochschild, click here).

The 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

 On Monday, October 10, Irish-born author John Banville was named the winner of the 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Sea, published in the U.K. by Picador, and soon to be published in the U.S. by Knopf.

Knopf is pushing up the U.S. publication date of The Sea from March to early November, said Knopf Executive Director of Publicity Paul Bogaards. The novel will have a "nice, robust" print run of 60,000, noted Bogaards.

"We'll bring Banville over at the time of publication, and in addition to all the attendant fanfare that comes with winning the Man Booker, Banville will be visible in a way that he's not ever been in the states," said Bogaards. "He'll have major newspaper profiles as well as NPR interviews. It's an opportunity ... to introduce a whole new set of readers to Banville and to launch his backlist."

The Sea tells the story of a Max Morden, who is both escaping from fresh loss and confronting distant trauma in the coastal town where he spent a childhood vacation.

Banville's first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970. He has written a number of other novels, including The Book of Evidence (Vintage), which was on the 1989 Booker Prize shortlist and won the 1998 Guinness Peat Aviation Award.

The Booker Prize for Fiction is awarded to the best full-length novel written in English by a citizen of the British Commonwealth or Ireland.