Month: March 2009

Announcing the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2009 Longlist

 

The ten novels selected for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2009 longlist are:

 

 

Novel

Author

Publisher

Addition

Toni Jordan

Text Publishing Melbourne Australia

A Fraction of the Whole

Steve Toltz

Hamish Hamilton (Penguin Books)

Breath

Tim Winton

Hamish Hamilton (Penguin Books)

fugitive blue

Claire Thomas

Allen & Unwin

Ice

Louis Nowra

Allen & Unwin

one foot wrong

Sofie Laguna

Allen & Unwin

The Devil’s Eye

Ian Townsend

Fourth Estate (HarperCollinsPublishers Australia)

The Pages

Murray Bail

Text Publishing Melbourne Australia

The Slap

Christos Tsiolkas

Allen & Unwin

Wanting

Richard Flanagan

Knopf (Random House Australia)

 

55 books were submitted for this year’s Award.

The shortlist will be announced Thursday 16 April at a media conference at the Galleries, State Library of  NSW. The winner, who will receive $42,000, will be announced at a gala dinner Thursday 18 June.

Judges for this year’s Award are Professor Robert Dixon, Professor Morag Fraser AM, Lesley McKay, Regina Sutton and Murray Waldren.

The 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award’s shortlisted authors and winner will again embark on a regional touring program made possible through the financial support of Australian copyright management company, Copyright Agency Limited (CAL).

This touring program – launched in 2007 – covers all Australian states and territories. The 2009 shortlist component will be announced in April

 

The Better Woman By Ber Carroll

A STORY OF TWO REMARKABLE WOMEN, THEIR ILLUSTRIOUS CAREERS, THEIR FAMILIES, THEIR FRIENDS, AND THE MEN THEY LOVE Sarah Ryan is self-reliant and ambitious, with a head for business inherited from growing up in her grandmother’s shop in a remote Irish village. Jodi Tyler was raised on Sydney’s Northern beaches and from a young age pushed herself to excel at both sport and her studies. From different ends of the world, Sarah and Jodi have more in common than they’ll ever realise. Fast forward to the present day, and Sarah and Jodi have their sights set on the same job.

Both of them have something to prove; to themselves, their families, their friends and the lovers they left behind. The new job represents status, power and the ultimate achievement in their respective careers. It also represents how far they’ve come to triumph over the tragedies of their pasts – but at what cost to their personal lives? And so now it’s up to fate to decide who is the better woman for the job.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ber Carroll was born in Blarney, County Cork, and moved to Australia in 1995. She worked as a finance director in the information technology industry until the release of her first novel, Executive Affair. Her second book, Just Business, was published in Ireland and Germany and these novels, plus her third, High Potential, were released in Australia in 2008. Ber lives in Sydney’s Northern Beaches with her husband and two children.

Silasand the Winterbottoms by Stephen M. Giles

Silas and the Winterbottoms is a fabulous gothic tale of three young cousins who are summoned by their evil Uncle Silas to spend the summer with him at Sommerset – his grand gothic estate perched on a mysterious island surrounded by an alligator-infested swamp.  Silas Winterbottom, who has had virtually no contact with his extended family for decades (except to insult them or refuse their requests for money), is dying. It is his intention to select an heir from among his nieces and nephew – Isabella Winterbottom (13), Adele Fester-Winterbottom (12) and Milo Winterbottom (12).  The Winterbottom children have very different backgrounds but each of them have motive for accepting Silas invitation: Adele’s family have been forced into exile in Tipping Point, Tasmania due to her mother’s unethical experiments with prize-winning poodles; Isabella and her father are accomplished criminals living a fraudulent life among London’s social elite and finally; Milo, orphaned after his parents were lost in a volcanic eruption, lives with his grandfather the Maestro in a tiny basement apartment in a London. One of the Winterbottoms believes Uncle Silas is a murderer; two of themwill do anything to win his favour and his fortune … and only one of them will be chosen. About the author                                                                                       

Stephen M. Giles is 36 and lives in Sydney. He describes himself as a “market researcher of staggering mediocrity”. Silas and the Winterbottoms is his first book.

Yellow Zone by Janelle G Dyer

I’m the kind who puts a book down before finishing the first chapter unless it really draws me in, and that can definitely be said for “Yellow Zone

“. The opening chapter jumps right into the style in which the book is entirely written, with the clever and witty yet easy to read format in which Janelle Dyer has provided.

Scott, the very amiable central character in the story, is at the scene of a shocking terrorist attack in Italy. He survives, but soon learns that the attack on Rome wasn’t an isolated one. Attacks take place all over the world, in the most powerful and populated locations. The battle then begins of trying to get back to Australia to find his family- if they also survived.

The story continues to create a bold, unsuspected and thought-provoking notion which makes for gripping reading. Janelle Dyer has achieved in making the most terrifying and surreal thought become a possibility. The charming characters she included in Yellow Zone add to the enjoyment of the read creating a sense of myself being involved in the plot. This book was a surprisingly exciting read, riddled with intelligent humour which resulted in me laughing out loud a number of times. I’m looking forward to Janelle’s future pulications.