Alice Munro wins 2009 Man Booker International Prize

"Alice Munro collected the Man Booker International Prize 2009 during a ceremony at Trinity College Dublin. The Canadian writer received a trophy along with the £60,000 award. The Man Booker International Prize is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work. The inaugural award was given to Ismail Kadaré in 2005 and the second to Chinua Achebe in 2007. Jane Smiley, chair of judges, gave a speech asking Alice Munro to receive the prize "as gratitude, our gratitude for her work." Smiley also called for more work to be translated into English and highlighted the importance of the Man Booker International Prize as "It offers a vantage point from which English language readers and publishers may survey the world"."

Royal Society Prize for Science Books shortlist

"It's a transatlantic race between the American academics and the UK's journalists and biographers in the competition for this year's Royal Society Prize for Science Books. The shortlist for the world's most prestigious awards for science writing was announced 25 June, and was made up of three books written by US academics and three written by British journalists and biographers."

The six books shortlisted by the judges are:

* What the nose knows: The science of scent in everyday life by Avery Gilbert (Crown Publishers)

* Bad science by Ben Goldacre (Harper Perennial)

* The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science by Richard Holmes (HarperPress)

* Decoding the heavens: Solving the mystery of the world's first computer by Jo Marchant (William Heinemann)

* The drunkard's walk: How randomness rules our lives by Leonard Mlodinow (Penguin)

* Your inner fish: The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor by Neil Shubin (Penguin)

The winner will be announced at an event at the Royal Society on 15 September 2009 and awarded £10,000. The authors of each shortlisted book will receive £1000

Oxfam Bookfest 2009

"From 4 to 18 July, Oxfam will be celebrating its love of books with more than 250 events in Oxfam shops, libraries, community centres and other venues around the UK, featuring a host of authors and celebrities. Some of the big names taking part in Bookfest include: Poet Laureate Carol Anne Duffy, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Mark Haddon, Kate Atkinson, Vikram Seth, Joanna Trollope, Anne Fine, Jonathan Coe, Marina Lewycka, Michael Faber and Nicholas Shakespeare. Plus there's James Robertson, Linda Newbery, Aileen Paterson, Mark Billingham, James Mayhew, Adele Geras, Cath Staincliffe, Barbara Erskine and Erica James..."

John Berger to donate archive to British Library

The eminent writer, critic, and thinker John Berger has announced the donation of his archive to the British Library. The archive of previously unseen 'put-aside objects' (Berger's description of archives in his collection Here is Where we Meet) is to be transferred to the care of the British Library from its current home in a remote French Alpine village later this month (June 2009). Jamie Andrews, Head of Modern Literary Manuscripts at the British Library, will travel to the Alps (setting off on 20 June 2009) to help sort through the papers - currently stored in an old stables - and bring them back to the climate-controlled storage areas in the heart of the British Library's flagship St Pancras building

The Miles Franklin Literary Award 2009 winner

The Miles Franklin Literary Award 2009 winner is Tim Winton for Breath

Vintage to publish new Man Booker Prize editions

Vintage have announced they are publishing beautiful new editions of nine Man Booker Prize winning titles which will all be available this August as the Vintage Booker collection. The titles are:

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (1998)
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee (1999)
How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman (1994)
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle (1993)
Possession by A.S. Byatt (1990)
The Famished Road by Ben Okri (1991)
The Gathering by Anne Enright (2007)
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch (1978)

These nine books were chosen from a number of previous Booker winners published by Vintage including: The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis (1986), J M Coetzee's The Life and Times of Michael K (1983), Stanley Middleton's Holiday (1974) and David Storey's Saville (1976). They will be available as Vintage paperbacks from 6th August 2009, each at GBP5.99.

2009 Scottish Book of the Year winner

"Acclaimed writer James Kelman has won Book of the Year 2009 in the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards for his novel Kieron Smith, boy. Managed by the Scottish Arts Council the awards are Scotland's richest book awards and net the author a total prize of GBP30,000. Kelman was presented with his GBP30,000 cheque by Sir Donald MacKay, Chairman of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust at a prestigious ceremony at Borders Book Festival in Melrose on Friday 19 June, hosted by writer and comedian Rory Bremner"

British Book Industry Awards 2009 winners

The winners of the British Book Industry Awards 2009 have been announced:

Frankfurt Book Fair Rights Professional of the Year
: Lucy Vanderbilt, HarperCollins


Orion Publishing Group Literary Agent of the Year: Jonathan Lloyd, Curtis Brown

Sue Butterworth Award for Young Bookseller of the Year, sponsored by HarperCollins: Joint Winners Max Porter of Daunt Books and Lisa Bird of Foyles South Bank

StoraEnso Design & Production Award: The Big Fat Duck Cookbook (Bloomsbury)

Baker Tilly Imprint & Editor of the Year: Ravi Mirchandani, Atlantic

Arts Council England Diversity Award in Literature: Saqi

The Daily Mail Marketing Campaign of the Year: Devil May Care Jane Rose, Penguin

PPC Publicity Campaign of the Year: The Outcast, Louise Rhind-Tutt, Random House

Independent Alliance Independent Bookshop of the Year: The Hungerford Bookshop

Lightning Source Independent Publisher of the Year: Atlantic Books

Harlequin Mills & Boon Direct Bookselling Company of the Year: The Book Depository

BDS/ehaus Chain Bookselling Company of the Year: WHSmith

Publishing Technology Publisher of the Year: Canongate