‘When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page’, wrote George Orwell, in his 1939 essay on Charles Dickens.
From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwell’s face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwell’s recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict.
What impression of Orwell will emerge? From his domestic diaries (which start on 9th August), it may be a largely unknown Orwell, whose great curiosity is focused on plants, animals, woodwork, and – above all – how many eggs his chickens have laid. From his political diaries (from 7th September), it may be the Orwell whose political observations and critical thinking have enthralled and inspired generations since his death in 1950. Whether writing about the Spanish Civil War or sloe gin, geraniums or Germany, Orwell’s perceptive eye and rebellion against the ‘gramophone mind’ he so despised are obvious.
Orwell wrote of what he saw in Dickens: ‘He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry— in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.’
What will you see in the Orwell diaries?
The Booker Prize Longlist has been announced.
http://www.bookrabbit.com/catalogue/browsecategory/categoryid/1360/Man-Booker-Fiction-Longlist-2008
The judges for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction have announced the longlist for this year’s prize.
The longlist of 13 books, often referred to as the ‘Man Booker Dozen’, was chosen from 112 entries; 103 were submitted for the prize and nine were called in by the judges.
The titles are:
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger
Michelle De Kretser The Lost Dog
Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture
John Berger From A to X
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs
Mohammed Hanif A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency
Joseph O’Neill Netherland
Salman Rushdie The Enchantress of Florence
Tom Rob Smith Child 44
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole
Chair of judges, Michael Portillo, commented:
“With a notable degree of consensus, the five Man Booker judges decided on their longlist of 13 books. The judges are pleased with the geographical balance of the longlist with writers from Pakistan, India, Australia, Ireland and UK. We also are happy with the interesting mix of books, five first novels and two novels by former winners. The list covers an extraordinary variety of writing. Still two qualities emerge this year: large scale narrative and the striking use of humour.”
What do you think of it? Take part in our discussions here:
http://www.bookrabbit.com/topics/showposts/topicid/325
About the Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known in short as the Booker Prize, is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland.
The winner of the Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and success. It is also a mark of distinction for authors to be nominated for the Booker longlist or selected for inclusion in the shortlist. In 1993, the Booker of Bookers Prize was awarded to Salman Rushdie for Midnight’s Children (the 1981 winner), as the best novel to win the award in the first 25 years of its existence. A similar prize known as The Best of the Booker was awarded in 2008 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the prize - this was also won by Midnight’s Children.
The prize was originally known as the Booker-McConnell Prize after the company Booker-McConnell began sponsoring the event in 1968, and became commonly known as the “Booker Prize” or simply “the Booker”. When administration of the prize was transferred to the Booker Prize Foundation in 2002, the title sponsor became the investment company Man Group, which opted to retain “Booker” as part of the official title of the prize. The prize money awarded with the Booker Prize was originally £21,000, and was subsequently raised to £50,000 in 2002 under the sponsorship of the Man Group
Links
Official Site
List of Previous Winners
We’ve had a couple of bits of feedback that the site sometimes isn’t as fast as it should be, and it can be hard to search for books and use the bookcase application.
So this week Rob and Nick have implemented a new search engine that now operates all the book, author, user and content searches on the site.
So searching should now be blisteringly fast and bookcase tagging should be much easier.
It is also a more intelligent search, so you should now get better search result. Give it a try.
The complete set of seven Harry Potter “deluxe” first editions signed by J. K. Rowling sold at Cameo Fine Art Auctioneers in Midgham, Berkshire for £17,800. The Illustrated hard covers were in near fine condition, signed, but without dedication, went to an anonymous overseas buyer. Apparently the lots were not true first editions, but the first in Bloomsbury’s ‘deluxe’ series, but still, £17,800 is not a bad figure for the seller, and one wonders what the price the books would fetch if they were first editions.
Henry Winkler of Fonz fame from the classic hit TV series Happy Days has written the Hank Zipzer books about a 10-year-old boy with dyslexia to help dyslexic children. Winkler himself a dyslexia sufferer has been in London to launch the National Year of Reading and made an appearance at the Department of Children, Schools and Families’ Teaching Awards.
“Just because we learn differently, that does not mean that we are not incredibly smart human beings. That’s something I need every child to understand.”
His books are amusingingly titled Hank Zipzer: I Got a “D” in Salami and Hank Zipzer: Niagara Falls - or Does It?
…apparently these books ‘rock!’ very much like the Fonz.
