Another Miles Franklin Award for Tim Winton!

Congratulations to Tim Winton for winning the 2009 Miles Franklin Award with Breath. This is Tim's fourth Miles Franklin Award. His previous winning novels were Dirt Music (2002), Cloudstreet (1992) and Shallows (1984).

The other short-listed novels this year were Ice by Louis Nowra, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, Wanting by Richard Flanagan and The Pages by Murray Bail.

Breath has also won the Indie Award for 2008 and the audio version has picked up an Earphones award.

Wolfson History Prize-winners Announced

The winners of the 2008 Wolfson History prize are Mary Beard for Pompeii: Life of a Roman Town and Margaret McGowan for Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession.

Previous winners include Antony Beevor, Roy Porter and William Dalrymple. A full list can be downloaded from here.

Debut novel wins the IMPAC Award

Man Gone Down by American writer Michael Thomas has won the 2009 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

The IMPAC award is unique in that it receives its nominations from public libraries around the world. Man Gone Down was nominated by The National Library Service of Barbados, Bridgetown, which described it as “A vibrant, well written first novel, an exploration of identity, inter-racial relationships and societal values through the eye of a black male.”

One of the judges, Irish academic and writer James Ryan said “We never know his name. But the African-American protagonist of Michael Thomas’ masterful debut, Man Gone Down, will stay with readers for a long time. He lingers because this extraordinary novel comes to us from a writer of enthralling voice and startling insight. Tuned urgently to the way we live now, the winner of the International Dublin IMPAC Prize 2009 is a novel brilliant in its scope and energy, and deeply moving in its human warmth.”

Other shortlisted books were The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen, Ravel by Jean Echenoz, Animal's People by Indra Sinha, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamed, The Archivist's Story by Travis Holland and The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt.

Byron Bay Writers Festival

The 2009 Byron Bay Writers Festival is on 7-9 August. You can get all the details here.

Galaxy wins again!

Congratulations to our sister shop Galaxy Bookshop for again winning the Australian Book Industry Awards NSW Specialist Bookseller of the Year.

They are now shortlisted for the Australian Specialist Bookseller of the Year Award which will be announced on 23rd June.