Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was surprised to learn that she had won the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. According to the BBC News:

The 29-year-old becomes the youngest winner, and the first from Africa, to win for her novel Half Of A Yellow Sun, set in the 1960s Biafran civil war.

The award is for women only and Adichie beat five other women. Her prize: 30,000pounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more and more talented young writers emerging from Africa, as there seems to be an untapped pool of literature that is just waiting to be read.

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Speaking of turning people on to books, I came across this article while surfing my usual sites today. It appears that novelist Yann Martel ("The Life of Pi") is sending books to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in an attempt to get more funding for the arts.

While I appreciate Martel’s method of "thinking outside the box", I’m not sure if I like classic books being used as "weapons". Nevertheless, the worst that will happen is Prime Minister Harper will simply ignore the books being sent to him. I applaud Martel for his efforts, just not sure how effective it will be.

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Oprah Winfrey’s infamous book club has made lots of headlines, both good and bad. Good because the books she recommends usually shoot to the bestseller list (although those lists aren’t a good judge of bestselling books. Read why that is here: Dirty little secrets). Bad because she has been heavily criticized for her promotion of James Frey’s memoir, that turned out to be mostly fiction. And who can forget the falling out she had with Jonathan Franzen, who snubbed her when she recommended his bestselling book The Corrections (aff link).

Good and bad press aside, Oprah is a polarizing figure. People either love her or they hate her. Whatever side of the line you fall on, it’s hard to doubt she has an enormous influence on pop culture.

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What do the words "hoodie", "Gitmo", "muffin top" and "wag" all have in common? Give up? They are all words that have been added to the just-published Collin’s English Dictionary 9th Edition.

Each year, when new editions of dictionaries are published, a long list of new words is always added. The words evolve from pop culture, technology, government and just about anywhere else you can think of. Even fast food giant McDonalds has unwillingly contributed to the English language with words such as Mcjob and McMansion (a large modern house that is mass produced).

This goes to show that language is alive and constantly evolving. Words that were slang or jargon are now everyday, common, household terms that  we use without even thinking twice. I remember a time when words like "internet" and "worldwide web" were unheard of and email and cell phones were reserved for the geekish techies who lived far ahead of their time. I’m sure many older readers out there can remember back even further when more techno-jargon was still a thing of the future.

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Last month I wrote a post about the Chicago Tribune moving its Books section from the usual Sunday paper to Saturdays (see Chicago Books section is moving). The move appears to be part of a larger national trend that is growing among the major papers – trimming down the Books section or cutting it out altogether.

However, the debate goes much deeper than newspapers trimming back. Much of the controversy surrounding such moves is fueled by, you guessed it, the blogosphere! There’s a war of words between bloggers and the more traditional print media jockies. The following quote taken from the LA Times is a good illustration of how those in print seem to feel about blogs:

"If you were an author, would you want your book reviewed in the Washington Post and the New York Review of Books, or on a web site written by someone who uses the moniker NovelGobbler or Biogafriend?" Michael Dirda, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic, wrote in the Washington Post. "The book review section … remains the forum where new titles are taken seriously as works of art and argument, and not merely as opportunities for shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting."

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I was shocked and a little dismayed last Sunday when I opened up my Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune to learn that they are moving the Books Section to the Saturday paper. This is bad news for me because I only subscribe to the Sunday Edition, in part, to save paper, as I get most of my daily news online – but also because I enjoy the Sunday paper the most.

My first reaction was that this is the first step the Tribune is taking to cut the Books section out altogether. This probably wouldn’t surprise many of you. As the decline of print newspapers has been steadily declining over the years, guess what gets cut first (hint: it’s not the Sports section!). We in Chicago are lucky, as we have one of only a handfull stand-alone Book sections left in the country; most have been tacked on to the back of the Arts section.

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I came across this article over a month ago and it sat in my "favorites" folder since then because I kinda forgot about it. But the other day I was going through all the links I had stored to try to clean them out, and I saw this article again.

The gist of the article is that schools in Britain are turning away free classics books because they figure students will find them boring and difficult! I couldn’t believe it when I read the story.Here’s a short excerpt:

Around 50 schools have refused to stock literary works by the likes of Jane Austen, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens after admitting that youngsters also find them boring.

If students are finding these works boring and difficult, then the schools are not doing a good enough job teaching them. I admit, even I can find Shakespeare boring if the professor just stands in front of the class and lectures for an hour – and renaissance literature is my concentration for my degree program!

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The results are in and the winners of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize have been announced today. The big winner in the fiction category is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. For poetry, it’s Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey. I send my personal congratulations to all the winners in all the categories!

For a complete list of winners, check out the Pulitzer Prize website here:
2007 Pulitzer Prize Winners

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If there ever was a time when authors have to slug it out to be the undisputed king of literature, then now is that time.

The Man Booker International Award announced a shortlist of 15 writers yesterday. At stake: a 60,000 pound (that’s British currency, not weight) prize – or  about $119,148 in US dollars. That’s a good chunk of change, especially for a writer! Here’s a quick excerpt naming a few of the finalists:

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There’s nothing new about fictional characters sitting down and chomping down on some good food during the course of a novel. Indeed, the "communion" of characters sitting down to eat, one of the primal desires we all share, is a fundamental pattern throughout the history of fiction. However, the evolution of food in novels is a little more interesting.

I recently ran across this article in The New Yorker. It’s about the varying degrees with which food appears in works of literature. For example, in the nineteenth century, the food is basic fare,  often  describing the meals of the working class (I’m thinking of the novels of Charles Dickens here). Perhaps the point of this elementary cuisine is to show the everydayness these characters dwell in.

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