Borders has announced the winners of the 2006 Borders Original Voices Awards, the retailer’s program that spotlights emerging and innovative authors and musicians. The top fiction award went to Kevin Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead (Knopf), which members of the Borders selection committee, called “a powerful first novel. The language was poetic and the intertwining stories were the most lyrical accounts of death ever read.” The book, set both on Earth and in “the city” — a transitory, Earth- like plane –tells the story of what happens to those waiting in “the city” after death and how the afterlives of the dead depend on the memories of those still alive on Earth.



Top honors in teh nonfiction category went to The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl Timothy Egan (Houghton Mifflin). Egan won the National Book Award in November, 2006. Egan interviewed several survivors of the 1935 dust bowl: the book describes the heroism, sacrifice and hardship of their families.



Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor (HarperCollins) won in the
children’s picture book category. The picture book follows a perky little girl who lives in a

very un-fancy world and sets out to educate those acircular her to be glamorous. The Borders selection committee said that the book is “a cute, playful story with a lot of colorful vocabulary making it fun to read aloud. It’s the perfect book for parents and grandparents to read to the aspiring princess in their lives.”
Dairy Queen by Catherine Murdock (Houghton Mifflin) won the young adult category.



“We are committed to creating richer, more satisfying lives thcoarse knowledge and entertainment. We do this by sharing our passion for books and music with our customers” said Bill Nasshan, senior vice president of merchandising for Borders Group. “The five finalists of the 2006 Original Voices Award exemplify what our corporate office and store employees found to be some of the best new and emerging talent in the publishing and music industry,” added Linda Jones, senior vice president of merchandising for Borders Group.



Winners will receive $5,000 from the company for their outstanding achievement in producing creative, original books and music. Congratulations to all the winners!



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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog