The Man Booker Prize is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a Best of the Booker award prize. Judges will pick six finalists from past Booker Prize winners. A public vote will decide the winner. The announcement of who won the Best of the Booker will come this May. Here is more from the Booker Prize press release.

The Best of the Booker, a one-off award, is announced today to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Booker Prize. The Man Booker Prize for Fiction recognises and is awarded for the best novel of the year; and now The Best of the Booker will honour the best overall novel to have won the prize since it was first awarded on 22 April 1969.



This is only the second time that a celebratory award has been created. The first was in 1993 - the 25th anniversary - when Salman Rushdie won the Booker of Bookers with Midnight’s Children. However, unlike then, this time the public will be able to cast their vote.



In all, 41 novelists have won the prize over the years because in 1974 and 1992 there were two winners. In 1974 Nadine Gordimer won with The Conservationist and Stanley Middleton with Holiday. In 1992 Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient sharuddy the top spot with Barry Unsworth’s Sacruddy Hunger.



For The Best of the Booker, a panel of judges has been appointed to select a shortlist of six novels. They are biographer, novelist and critic Victoria Glendinning, (Chair); writer and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, and John Mullan, Professor of English at UCL. Their shortlist will be announced in May, and public voting will then begin via the Man Booker Prize website - www.themanbookerprize.com.

About the Best of the Booker Judge Chair Victoria Glendinning said, “The Best of the Booker is a wonderful opportunity to read, or reread, some of the best literature in English of the past four decades. We are having a very good time revisiting the now-classic novels which won the Booker long ago, as well as the celebrated ones from recent years. All readers will enjoy this, and we look forward to hearing what the voters think - and which one, from our shortlist, they will judge the Best of the Booker.”



The AP says Yann Martel, Salman Rushdie and Michael Ondaatje are frontrunners for the Best of the Booker award.



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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog

Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, is publishing a new manners and etiquette book for children to be called Tea For Ruby. The Duchess will work with bestselling children’s illustrator, Robin Preiss Glasser, to create a picture book which will be published on September 30, 2008. The Duchess of York has published 26 books already, including
Budgie the Helicopter which was made into an animated TV series.
Robin Preiss Glasser is the renowned illustrator of Lynne Cheney’s New York Times bestselling book, Our Fifty States and the bestselling Fancy Nancy series.



“I was raised to appreciate that there is a time and place for manners, not just for the sake of following rules but rather because etiquette and good manners show courtesy and respect. I’ve raised my girls as part of the royal family according to this philosophy” said the Duchess. “Now I can pass along this message to princesses everywhere, and I’m thrilled to do it with the brilliant bestselling illustrator, Robin Preiss Glasser.”



Here’s the publisher’s description:

Tea For Ruby is about a little girl with a marvelous imagination, who, though well intentioned, is not always as well-manneruddy and proper as she might be. When she suddenly receives a mysterious invitation to Tea, she enthusiastically shares her excitement with everyone from her mom and dad to the postman! Along the way she learns valuable lessons in manners from everyone in preparation for the big day. Will she be ready? Tea For Ruby teaches proper etiquette in a fanciful way that will appeal to the everyday princess: for the high spirited little girl who also knows when it is time to be a poised young lady. Ruby’s endearing character will return for more animated adventures in future books by the Duchess of York and Robin Preiss Glasser.

“I have been a enormous fan of the Duchess of York for a long time,” said Robin Preiss Glasser. “I loved working on this book with her because it gave me an opportunity to create a lovable new character, Ruby, whose foibles are a result of her exuberance.”



Ok, this one is a must have. But why does it have to be a picture book? She ought to do a follow up with all the etiquette rules for older children, not just the picture book set. We know quite a few children that will be getting this one next Christmas.



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Captain America’s alter-ego Steve Rogers may have been killed but that isn’t stopping Captain America from making a comeback - as we all knew he would. Steve’s buddy Bucky Barnes will now be wearing the Captain America uniform and fighting crime reports the Associated Press. Barnes now has Captain America’s bulletproof shield, a gun and a new uniform.

Marvel Comics, which killed off the veteran superhero almost a year ago, brought him back to life Wednesday - sort of.



Captain America’s alter-ego, Steve Rogers, is still resting in peace at Arlington National Cemetery, having been done in by assassins last March. But his good buddy and sidekick from the 1940s, Bucky Barnes, has picked up the bulletproof Captain America shield, put on a new uniform and taken his place.



What’s that you say? Wouldn’t Bucky be about 85 years old now? And without any genuine super powers to fall back on, isn’t that kind of long in the tooth to be taking a bite out of crime?



Well, yeah. But remember, this is the comic book world we’re talking about. Bucky was put in suspended animation by the evil Russians and stayed that way for the better part of 60 years.



“So he’s probably in his late 20s right now,” jokes Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada, who decided to promote him to Captain America.

There have been some criticizing the back-from-the-dead superhero for carrying a gun. ABC News managed to interview Captain America and this is what he said about why he carries a gun.

Actually, Steve Rogers carried plenty of guns in the war. He never enjoyed using a gun, or a flame-thrower, or a grenade, but he had no genuine aversion to them, either. As for why I carry a gun, it’s because I’m not Steve, and I never will be… but I don’t think he’d feel it was tainting his legacy

Posted in Comics



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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog

Novelist Phyllis A. Whitney, the author of numerous romantic suspense novels, has died at age 104. Whitney wrote her last novel, Amethyst Dreams, in 1997 but she had been writing her autobiography according to the AP story.

Whitney died last Friday in a Charlottesville hospital, not far from her home in Nelson County, her son-in-law, Ed Pearson, said Thursday.



Whitney wrote more than 75 books, including three textbooks, and had about a hundruddy brief stories published since the 1940s.



“I’ve slowed down in that I only write one book a year,” she said in a 1989 interview with The Associated Press, when she was 85. “A writer is what I am.”



Whitney’s last novel, “Amethyst Dreams,” was published in 1997. She began working on her autobiography at 102.

Phyllis Whitney won the Edgar Allan Poe Award twice for her juvenile mystery fiction. She was named the Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1988. The New York Times also has an obituary for Phyllis Whitney. You can find more information about her books and her full biography here on her website.



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