‘Netherland’ picks up PEN/Faulkner award for fiction – Joseph O’Neill’s novel Netherland has picked up this year’s prestigious PEN/Faulkner award for fiction, an accolade which pays homage to the best published fictional works by American authors in a given calendar year (obviously 2008 in this case). In the official press release (direct link in Word format) O’Neill’s novel, which is set in a post-9/11 New York with a plot that surprisingly centres around the sport of cricket, was chosen as the overall winner out of a pool of close to 350 novels and short story collections.
US vs UK book covers – As I continue procrastinating over the launch of my ‘Cover Love’ feature on RobAroundBooks (it’s coming soon I promise 
)), The Millions blog has a nice post discussing US vs UK book covers. The post’s author C. Max Magee chose a selection of titles from the contenders for the 2009 Tournament of Books over at The Morning News (an online magazine). The verdict from Max? Kind of a draw really. Some UK covers are better than the US ones and vice versa, a result which is not all that surprising really ). ::via Abe’s Reading Copy Book Blog
It’s the eve of Steinbeck’s birthday – For those who don’t know, tomorrow (27th February) marks the 107th year of John Steinbeck’s birth, and possessing a huge, huge love for the man, tomorrow is a pretty special day for me. How am I marking it? 1. By getting a big box of fresh cakes from the bakers (not just for me, honest), and 2. By putting aside all of my other reading commitments for a couple of days, so I can free myself up to be able to read the most coveted ‘not read yet’ Steinbeck novel in my collection – Sweet Thursday. I’ve had a 1955 edition in my collection since November and have struggled with myself not to read it ever since. Sweet Thursday is the follow-up to one of my favourite novels of all-time, Cannery Row, and I can’t wait to get back in touch with Doc, Lee Chong and Mac et al, and what better day to do that?
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