view cart

The Sisters Brothers$22.95 add to cart

The 2012 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour has been awarded to Patrick DeWitt, for his quirky western novel The Sisters Brothers. This is Mr. DeWitt's third major award, joining the Governor-General's Award for Fiction and the Roger's Writers Trust Prize on his mantel.

April also sees the re-release of Mr. DeWitt's first novel, Ablutions (Anansi Press).

For the first time in 35 years and the 11th time in Pulitzer Prize history, the Pulitzer committee has been unable to reach a consensus for this year's Fiction winner. As a result, there will be no award given in the Fiction category.

The three finalists for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction were:

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
A novella about a day laborer in the old American West, bearing witness to terrors and glories with compassionate, heartbreaking calm.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, Alfred A. Knopf
An adventure tale about an eccentric family adrift in its failing alligator-wrestling theme park, told by a 13-year-old heroine wise beyond her years.

The Pale King by the late David Foster Wallace, Little, Brown and Company
A posthumously completed novel, animated by grand ambition, that explores boredom and bureaucracy in the American workplace.

Read on for a complete list of winners of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Letters, Drama and Music.

General Non-Fiction
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
A provocative book arguing that an obscure work of philosophy, discovered nearly 600 years ago, changed the course of history by anticipating the science and sensibilities of today.

Biography
George F. Kennan by John Lewis Gaddis
An engaging portrait of a globetrotting diplomat whose complicated life was interwoven with the Cold War and America's emergence as the world's dominant power.

History
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
An exploration of the legendary life and provocative views of one of the most significant African-Americans in US history, a work that separates fact from fiction and blends the heroic and tragic.

Drama
Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes
An imaginative play about the search for meaning by a returning Iraq war veteran working in a sandwich shop in his hometown of Philadelphia.

Poetry
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith
A collection of bold, skillful poems, taking readers into the universe and moving them to an authentic mix of joy and pain.

Music
Kevin Puts for Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts
Commissioned and premiered by the Minnesota Opera in Minneapolis on November 12, 2011, a stirring opera that recounts the true story of a spontaneous cease-fire among Scottish, French and Germans during World War I, displaying versatility of style and cutting straight to the heart. Libretto by Mark Campbell (ApertoPress).

 

view cart

Nation Maker$37.00 add to cart

The J.W. Dafoe Book Prize for 2012 has been awarded to Richard J. Gwyn, for his book Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times, published by Random House

The J.W. Dafoe Book Prize is awarded to the best book on Canada, Canadians,and/or Canada's place in the world published in the previous calendar year. Past winners include Sean T. Cadigan for Newfoundland & Labrador: A History (University of Toronto Press), Jack Bumstead for Lord Selkirk: A Life (University of Manitoba Press), and Tim Cook for At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914-1916, Volume One (Viking Press).

The Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK's only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, announced yesterday the 2012 shortlist. Now in its seventeenth year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women's writing throughout the world.

This year's shortlist honours both new and well-established authors, including a debut novelist and a previous Orange Prize winner; Ann Patchett, who won the Orange Prize for Fiction ten years ago for Bel Canto (2002).

The Nominees Are

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan, Thomas Allen Publishers

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, Harper Collins Publishers

Foreign Bodies, by Cynthia Ozick, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller, Harper Collins Publishers

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, McClelland & Stewart

Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding, Bloomsbury