Phoenix Award (1985-2010)

from Collecting Children's Books by Peter D. Sieruta accessed 10/31/09

The Phoenix Award, is presented each year by the Children’s Literature Association, to “the most outstanding book for children published twenty years earlier which did not receive a major award at the time of publication.”
It’s a fascinating premise for a book award. It allows a committee to fix past slights, identify titles that have fallen into neglect and are now ripe for revival, or perhaps use twenty/twenty hindsight to select winners that have grown in stature in the years since publication. The award is international in scope, with several winners hailing from Great Britain and Australia. Personally, I think the guideline regarding a book not having received “a major award” is interpreted a bit liberally since Newbery Honor Books -- not winners, but still...they're pretty major -- are eligible. I'd prefer to see Newbery Honors uneligible as well.

Here is the list of previous winners:

2010 /. THE SHINING COMPANY / Rosemary Sutcliff
2009 / WEETZIE BAT / Francesca Lia Block
Honor Book: LUCIE BABBIDGE’S HOUSE / Sylvia Cassedy
2008 / EVA / Peter Dickinson
Honor Book: THE DEVIL’S ARITHMETIC / Jane Yolen
2007 / MEMORY / Margaret Mahy
Honor Book: WAITING FOR THE RAIN / Sheila Gordon
2006 / HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE / Diana Wynne Jones
Honor Book : THE TRICKSTER / Margaret Mahy
Honor Book : THE SHADOW IN THE NORTH / Philip Pullman
2005 / THE CATALOGUE OF THE UNIVERSE / Margaret Mahy
Honor Book : FIRE AND HEMLOCK / Diana Wynne Jones
2004 / WHITE PEAK FARM / Berlie Doherty
Honor Book : ANGEL SQUARE / Brian Doyle
2003 / THE LONG NIGHT WATCH / Ivan Southall
Honor Book : A SOLITARY BLUE / Cynthia Voigt
2002 / A FORMAL FEELING / Zibby Oneal
Honor Book : STORY FOR A BLACK NIGHT / Clayton Bess
2001 / THE SEVENTH RAVEN / Peter Dickinson
Honor Book : THE NIGHT JOURNEY / Kathryn Laskey
2000 / KEEPER OF THE ISIS LIGHT / Monica Hughes
Honor Book : THE FLEDGLING / Jane Langton
1999 / THROWING SHADOWS / E.L. Konigsburg
Honor Book : THE DISAPPEARANCE / Rosa Guy
Honor Book : WORDS BY HEART / Ouida Sebestyen
1998 / A CHANCE CHILD / Jill Paton Walsh
Honor Book : BEAUTY / Robin McKinley
Honor Book : THE DEVIL IN VIENNA / Doris Orgel
1997 / I AM THE CHEESE / Robert Cormier
1996 / THE STONE BOOK / Alan Garner
Honor Book : ABEL’S ISLAND / William Steig
1995 / DRAGONWINGS / Laurence Yep
Honor Book : TUCK EVERLASTING / Natalie Babbitt
1994 / OF NIGHTINGALES THAT WEEP / Katherine Paterson
Honor Book : MY BROTHER SAM IS DEAD / James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
Honor Book : LISTEN FOR THE FIG TREE / Sharon Bell Mathis
1993 / CARRIE’S WAR / Nina Bawden
Honor Book : A PROUD TASTE FOR SCARLET AND MINIVER / E.L. Konigsburg
1992 / A SOUND OF CHARIOTS / Mollie Hunter
1991 / A LONG WAY FROM VERONA / Jane Gardam
Honor Book : A GAME OF DARK / William Mayne
Honor Book : THE TOMBS OF ATUAN / Ursula LeGuin
1990 / ENCHANTRESS FROM THE STARS / Sylvia Louise Engdahl
Honor Book : RAVENSGILL / William Mayne
Honor Book : SING DOWN THE MOON / Scott O’Dell
1989 / THE NIGHT-WATCHMEN / Helen Cressell
Honor Book : BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME? / Milton Meltzer
Honor Book : PISTOL / ADRIENNE RICHARD
1988 / THE RIDER AND THE HORSE / Erik Christian Haugaard
1987 / SMITH / Leon Garfield
1986 / QUEENIE PEAVY / Robert Burch
1985 / THE MARK OF THE HORSE LORD / Rosemary Sutcliff

Young Lions Fiction Award

The 2009 Young Lions Fiction Award Winner will be announced at the Award Ceremony on March 16.

Finalists:
Jon Fasman, The Unpossessed City
Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances
Sana Krasikov, One More Year
Zachary Mason, The Lost Books of the Odyssey
Salvatore Scibona, The End - winner


2008 Finalists:
Ron Currie, Jr., God is Dead - winner
Ellen Litman, The Last Chicken in America
Peter Nathaniel Malae, Teach the Free Man
Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
Emily Mitchell, The Last Summer of the World


2007 Finalists:
Chris Adrian, The Children's Hospital
Kevin Brockmeier, The Brief History of the Dead
Tony D'Souza, Whiteman
Olga Grushin, The Dream Life of Sukhanov - winner
Karen Russell, St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves


2006 Finalists:
Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation - winner
Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Sightseeing
Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners
Ander Monson, Other Electricities
Eric Puchner, Music Through the Floor


2005 Finalists:
Marc Bojanowski, The Dog Fighter
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeleine is Sleeping
Stephen Elliott, Happy Baby
Andrew Sean Greer, The Confessions of Max Tivoli - winner
Aaron Gwynn, Dog on the Cross


2004 Finalists:
Jordan Ellenberg, The Grasshopper King
Susan Choi, American Woman
Lara Vapnyar, There Are Jews in My House
Maile Meloy, Liars and Saints
Monique Truong, The Book of Salt - winner


2003 Finalists:
Anthony Doerr, The Shell Collector - winner
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated - winner
Adam Johnson, Emporium
Ben Marcus, Notable American Women
Peter Rock, The Ambidextrist


2002 Finalists:
David Czucklewski, The Muse Asylum
Allegra Goodman, Paradise Park
Brady Udall, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint
Peter Orner, Esther Stories
Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days - winner


2001 Finalists:
Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves - winner
David Ebershoff, The Danish Girl
Myla Goldberg, Bee Season
Heidi Julavits, The Mineral Palace
Akhil Sharma, An Obedient Father
Darin Strauss, Chang and Eng


This prize is part of the Library's Young Lions Program, which is a membership group for people in their 20s and 30s who are committed to supporting the organization and to celebrating young writers and artists who are making an impact on this city's cultural life.

For more information on the Young Lions Fiction Award Fund, please contact the Young Lions office at 212-930-0885 or younglions@nypl.org.

For the submission guidelines for the award, please CLICK HERE.

Telegraph's 20 best travel books of all time

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/artsandculture/travelbooks/4932008/The-20-best-travel-books-of-all-time.html?image=19

Kerouac, Jack. On the road
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
Naples '44 by Norman Lewis
Coasting by Jonathan Raban
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
The Beach by Alex Garland
The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron
11. Venice by Jan Morris
In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
The Journals of Captain Cook
Among the Russians by Colin Thubron

NIKE prize (Polish) 2009

updated with winner on 10/30/09 from Bacacay: Polish Literature Weblog:
This year’s NIKE Literary Award was announced on October 4. It went to Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, the only poet among 7 finalists, for his book Piosenka o zależnościach i uzależnieniach (Biuro Literackie 2009). Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, who was born in 1962, has over 9 books of poetry in Polish and one in English: Peregrinary, which was translated by Bill Johnston and published in 2008 by Zephyr Press.

from culture.pl accessed 9/14/09:
The NIKE is a prize for the best book of the year published in Polish; it was first presented in 1997. The list of 20 books nominated for the 2009 award was announced on 21 May 2009, on the first day of the 54th International Book Fair in Warsaw.

The list of seven finalists of the Nike 2009 Literary Award announced on September 3, 2009. The laureate will be chosen on October 4, 2009.

• The Flypaper Factory, Andrzej Bart (WAB)
  The writer narrates the imaginary Łódź trial of Chaim Rumkowski, chairman of the Judenrat in the Łódź Ghetto.

• Bambino, Inga Iwasiów (Świat Książki)
  Iwasiów ponders on the identity of the German and Polish town and presents a panorama of the whole of People’s Poland, from World War II until 1981.

• Gestures, Ignacy Karpowicz (Wydawnictwo Literackie)
  A new novel from the author of Niehalo [“Uncool”] and Cud [“The Miracle”]. Grzegorz arrives in his provincial native parts to see his ill, aging mother and realizes they have little in common.

• Ostrogski Palace, Tomasz Piątek (WAB)
  The author himself says: “It’s a book about someone trying to disentangle himself from being a thing and returning to humanity, being reborn. Having a choice in life.” Personal memories are mingled here with essays and the fantasy of novels.

• Queen of Tiramisu, Bohdan Sławiński (Jacek Santorski)
  The protagonist of Bohdan Sławiński’s novel is Peter, or rather Petey—a delicate, sensitive and tender person. The thoughtful boy gets involved with a mature, well-off married woman.

• A Song About Dependences and Addictions, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki (Biuro Literackie)
  A new book of poetry from the author of the volumes Kamień pełen pokarmu [“A Stone Full of Nourishment”], Dzieje rodzin polskich [“A History of Polish Families”], winner of the Gdynia Literary Prize.

• Turul Goulash, Krzysztof Varga (Czarne)
  Varga’s previous novel, Nagrobek z lastryko [“Terrazzo Tombstone”], was about Polish history and symbols; now, in this volume of essays, Varga turns to the Hungarians.

SCIBA: Southern California Bookseller Awards (2005,2009)

SCIBA Winners 2009
Winners of the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association awards, which "reflect Southern California culture or lifestyle, with authors/illustrators living within the SCIBA region," are:

Nonfiction: Susan Campoy for Celebrating with Julienne
Fiction: Lisa See for Shanghai Girls
T. Jefferson Parker Mystery: Debra Ginsberg for The Grift
Children's Picture Book: David Shannon for Too Many Toys
Children's Novel: Michael Grant for Hunger -- added Gone (#1 in series)
Glenn Goldman Art & Architecture Book: Patrick Ecclesine for Faces of Sunset Boulevard and Annie Leibovitz for Annie Leibovitz at Work
The winners were honored at the SCIBA authors feast and trade show on Saturday (10/24/09) in Los Angeles.

2005:
At last Saturday's (10/15/05) lively Authors Feast in Long Beach, Calif., attended by 275 people, the winners of the Southern California Bookseller Awards were all on hand and included several popular local writers with national audiences.

Fiction:

Lisa See, who had told several people beforehand that she wouldn't win, said that the honor capped a day of firsts for her. Her husband had let her drive his car; she had given a talk in a church; and she won an award--for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Random House).

Mystery:

T. Jefferson Parker, who noted that he has lived in Los Angeles County, Orange County and now San Diego County, as he works his way down the coast, said that in his mysteries, he has tried to capture something of the essence of Southern California. The recognition by booksellers of California Girl (Morrow) he took as a happy acknowledgement that he had succeeded.

Nonfiction:

A man with roots in the area as deep as they get, Ernest Marquez, who won for his memoir, Santa Monica Beach (Angel City Press), said that in the early nineteenth century, his great-grandfathers owned much of what is present-day Santa Monica. Laughing, he added, "Now 160 years later, I can't even go on it."

Children's Books:

Noting that he had taken much of Alice the Fairy (Blue Sky/Scholastic) from his daughter--half the storyline and even the title--David Shannon wondered if when she turned 18, she might sue him.

Leonardo Padura's top 10 Cuban novels

Leonardo Padura's top 10 Cuban novels
Hemingway and Hijuelos are here, but the author of the Havana Quartet also looks beyond the Cuba we think we know to introduce some of the island's more hidden literary treasures
Leonardo Padura
Wednesday March 4 2009
guardian.co.uk


Leonardo Padura was born in 1955 in Havana and lives in Cuba. He has published a number of short-story collections and literary essays but international fame came with the Havana Quartet, all featuring Inspector Mario Conde. Like many others of his generation, Padura had faced the question of leaving Cuba, particularly in the late 80s and early 90s, when living conditions deteriorated sharply as Russian aid evaporated. He chose to stay.

The 10 I've picked here will hopefully give some idea of both the country's literary tradition, and its imaginative life.

1. Explosion in a Cathedral (El siglo de las luces) by Alejo Carpentier (1962, trans. John Sturrock)
2. Cecilia Valdes Or El Angel Hill (Cecilia Valdes) by Cirilo Villaverde (1882, trans. Helen Lane)
3. Three Trapped Tigers (Tres tristes tigres) by Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1967, trans. Suzanne Jill Levine & Donald Gardner)
4. Paradiso by Jose Lezama Lima (1974, trans. Gregory Rabassa)
5. The Lost Steps (Los pasos perdidos) by Alejo Carpentier (1953, trans. Harriet de On?s)
6. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)
7. Temporada de ?ngeles (1983), Lisandro Otero; A Season For Angels, not translated.
8. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989), Oscar Hijuelos
9. Antes que anochezca (1990), Reinaldo Arenas; Before Night Falls, trans. Dolores M. Koch (1993)
10. El negrero (1933), Lino Nov?s Calvo; The Slave-trader, not translated

German Book Prize (2009)

from German Book Office accessed 100509, Winner announced 101309

The German Book Prize is supported by Paschen & Companie and the 1822-Stiftung der Frankfurter Sparkasse. Its other partners are the Frankfurt Book Fair and Frankfurt City.

Shortlist: The nominated novels (in alphabetical order):

* Rainer Merkel: Lichtjahre entfernt (S. Fischer, March 2009) -- nothing in English 1009
* Herta Müller: Atemschaukel (Hanser, August 2009) -- nothing in English 1009
* Norbert Scheuer: Überm Rauschen (C. H. Beck, June 2009) -- nothing in English 1009
* Kathrin Schmidt: Du stirbst nicht (February 2009) -- nothing in English 1009 -- Winner!
* Clemens J. Setz: Die Frequenzen (Residenz, February 2009) -- nothing in English 1009
* Stephan Thome: Grenzgang (Suhrkamp, August 2009) -- nothing in English 1009

High Plains Book Awards (2009)

Louise Erdrich was honored with an emeritus award during the High Plains Book Awards (2009) banquet at Montana State University last weekend. Other winners included:

Leif Enger's So Brave, Young and Handsome (fiction)
In Contemporary Rhythm: The Art of Ernest L. Blumenschein by Peter H. Hassrick and Elizabeth J. Cunningham (nonfiction)
Margot Kahn's Horses That Buck (first book)
Craig Arnold's Made Flesh (poetry)
Jennifer Graf Broneberg's Road Map to Holland (Zonta Award for best woman writer).

As the Billings Gazette noted, the High Plains Book Awards "were established by Parmly Billings Library trustees and recognize regional writers or literary works examining and reflecting life on the High Plains."

Zadie Smith's upcoming fiction seminar list

from The Squib Report accessed 10/07/09

Zadie Smith is teaching a weekly fiction seminar at Columbia University this semester under the title "Sense and Sensibility."

A local bookstore called Book Culture, which I believe for years was called Labyrinth, has posted 10 of the 15 books that Smith is assigning her charges. Here they are:

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace -- short stories
Catholics, Brian Moore
The Complete Stories, Franz Kafka
Crash, J.G. Ballard
An Experiment in Love, Hilary Mantel
Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader, David Lodge
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
My Loose Thread, Dennis Cooper
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Loser, Thomas Bernhard
The Book of Daniel, E.L. Doctorow
A Room with a View, E.M. Forster
Reader's Block, David Markson
Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov
The Quiet American, Graham Greene

International Literature Award (2009)

from Haus der Kulturen der Welt accessed 10/07/09

International Literature Award - Haus der Kulturen der Welt: The Prize-winners

The prize–winners of the International Literature Award – Haus der Kulturen der Welt 2009 have been named: The Peruvian writer Daniel Alarcón and Friederike Meltendorf are the first winners of the prize awarded by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, and Stiftung Elementarteilchen. Alarcón, who lives in the USA, won the 25,000 Euro prize for his debut novel “Lost City Radio” (Wagenbach Verlag). 10,000 Euros go to Friederike Meltendorf for her translation of the novel from American English.

The prize will be awarded for the first time, and in the presence of the prize-winners, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt on the evening of the 30 September 2009 .

Shortlist for 2009 in alphabetical order

Alarcón, Daniel: Lost City Radio -- Winner!
Doulatabadi, Mahmud: Der Colonel
Hage, Rawi: Als ob es kein Morgen gäbe
Hemon, Aleksandar: Lazarus
Kohan, Martín: Zweimal Juni
Mengestu, Dinaw: Zum Wiedersehen der Sterne(The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears)

Longlist 2009
Abad, Héctor; Brief an einen Schatten
Adiga, Aravind: Der weiße Tiger (The White Tiger)
Alarcón, Daniel: Lost City Radio
Blacklaws, Troy: Malindi (Karoo Boy)
Diaz, Junot: Das kurze wundersame Leben des Oscar Wao (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)
Doulatabadi, Mahmud: Der Colonel
Galgut, Damon: Der Betrüger (The Impostor)
Hage, Rawi: Als ob es kein Morgen gäbe (De Niro’s Game)
Hanif, Mohammed: Eine Kiste explodierender Mangos (A Case of Exploding Mangos)
Hemon, Aleksandar: Lazarus (The Lazarus Project)
Kohan, Martín: Zweimal Juni
Mengestu, Dinaw: Zum Wiedersehen der Sterne(The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears)
Plascencia, Salvador: Menschen aus Papier (The People of Paper)
Rahimi, Atiq: Stein der Geduld

Every year from now on, the highly endowed literature prize will be awarded to new works of contemporary international literature and their translations. The award has two aims: to draw attention to contemporary literature across the globe and to pay tribute to the mediatory role played by literary translators. The International Literature Prize aims to heighten people's awareness of outstanding and extraordinary new works of international literature.

Philip Pullman's essential reading list

Philip Pullman's essential reading list
40 favourite books selected for the Waterstone's Writer's Table

COMPLETE POEMS
by Elizabeth Bishop
How simple some great poetry can seem - as x` as water, and as necessary. Bishop is incomparable: “Awful, but cheerful,” she said.

THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
by Robert Burton
A vast rickety structure of learning, wit, sense, nonsense, bizarre anecdotes, kindness, and wisdom. A humane guide and antidote to this terrible affliction.

A PERFECT SPY
by John le Carré
A perfect blend of form, subject, sensibility and moral power. Le Carré's best book, and one of the finest English novels of the 20th century.

THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins

For sheer plotting genius, Collins had no rival. If you've never read this, I can promise you one of the most gripping stories of all time.

KOLYMSKY HEIGHTS
by Lionel Davidson
The best thriller I've ever read, and I've read plenty. A solidly researched and bone-chilling adventure in a savage setting, with a superb hero.

THE ANCESTOR'S TALE
by Richard Dawkins
Dawkins at his very best: a beautiful clarity of exposition, and an unslaked sense of wonder at the grandeur, richness and complexity of nature.

THE COMPLETE BRIGADIER GERARD STORIES
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Everyone knows Sherlock Holmes, but Brigadier Gerard is a marvellous creation - proud, valiant and absurd.

THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH
On the evidence of these honest, revealing and very moving letters, the greatest painter was a great writer as well; and his brother was a saint.

ART AND ILLUSION
by E.H. Gombrich
This is all about the mysterious business of looking and seeing, and E.H. Gombrich looked deeper and saw more than almost any other writer on art.

THE COMPLETE FAIRY TALES
by the Brothers Grimm
The fountain, the origin. Read one of these stories every day and your narrative taste will be purified, strengthened and refreshed.

THE CASTAFIORE EMERALD
by Hergé
Hergé was the best at everything: plots, draughtsmanship, jokes, characterisation, timing - he could do the lot, and this is his best book.

THE PRIVATE MEMOIRS AND CONFESSIONS OF A JUSTIFIED SINNER
by James Hogg
A brilliant, chilling and subtle account of religious derangement. Every self-righteous fundamentalist ought to read this, but of course they won't.

COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES
by M.R. James
I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm frightened of them. They don't come any scarier than in these superb examples of the classic English ghost story.

THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
by William James
The most interesting thing about religion: not whether it's true, but what it feels like, explored by a psychologist of great intelligence and sympathy.

FINN FAMILY MOOMINTROLL
by Tove Jansson
The delight of the Moomin world always trembles on the brink of melancholy; its subtle and fascinating atmosphere is a triumph of the storyteller's art.

KIM
by Rudyard Kipling
A story about a boy in India, who ... But no summary can do this marvellous, rich and unforgettable novel anything like justice.

THE MARQUISE OF O
by Heinrich Von Kleist
A very strange writer: intense almost to the point of madness, but what a penetrating mind, and what sharpness and clarity of vision.

A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS
by David Lindsay
As literature, this is tosh. Nevertheless, it's a work of epic moral grandeur, and one of the very few fantasies to do something truly original and important with the genre.

THE MAGIC PUDDING
by Norman Lindsay
The best thing yet to come out of Australia, and that includes Shane Warne. If anyone can read this without laughing, heaven help them.

LAVENDER'S BLUE
edited by Kathleen Lines
Every household needs a collection of nursery rhymes, which are the foundation of every kind of success with language. This has always been my favourite.

VENICE FOR PLEASURE
by J.G. Links
Whether in prospect or in retrospect, or there in one's hands in the city itself, the most informative and engaging guide to the past and present of Venice.

THE CALL OF CTHULHU
by H.P. Lovecraft
Preposterous, overblown, absurd in every way - yet with an originality that looks more powerful and convincing each time I dip into it.

BUDDENBROOKS
by Thomas Mann
How could a 25-year-old know so much, and write so perceptively? The first of Mann's great novels, and still astonishing today.

THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
by Robert Musil
The greatest condition-of-Europe novel, but much more than a profound diagnosis - it's enormously funny, apart from anything else. I never tire of it.

THE BEST OF MYLES
by Flann O'Brien
The best collection of the funniest newspaper columns ever written. It's as simple as that. After this, read his The Third Policeman.

THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS
by Elaine Pagels
We live in Gnostic times. This is a clear account of the strange and intoxicating religion that nearly supplanted orthodox Christianity in its earliest years.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND
by Roger Penrose
This is an age of great writing about science, and here is some of the finest. Penrose's knowledge is awe-inspiring in its reach and completeness.

THE BOOK OF DISQUIET
by Fernando Pessoa
The very book to read when you wake at 3am and can't get back to sleep - mysteries, misgivings, fears and dreams and wonderment. Like nothing else.

WOLF SOLENT
by John Cowper Powys
Powys evoked the English landscape with an almost sexual intensity. Hardy comes to mind, but a Hardy drunk and feverish with mystical exuberance.

EXERCISES IN STYLE
by Raymond Queneau
A pointless anecdote told in 99 different ways, or a work of genius in a brilliant translation by Barbara Wright. In fact it's both. Endlessly fascinating and very funny.

WE DIDN'T MEAN TO GO TO SEA
by Arthur Ransome
Ransome never strayed beyond the realistic, but what an exciting story this is: danger, courage, skilful seamanship, and a real respect for his young protagonists.

DUINO ELEGIES
by Rainer Maria Rilke
The deepest mysteries of existence embodied in the most delicate and precise images. For me, the greatest poetry of the 20th century.

SELECTED WRITINGS
by John Ruskin
The best way to read this great and life-enhancing writer is in short and well-chosen excerpts. Earnest, unfashionable, no doubt; but profoundly wise and truthful.

THE COMPLETE MAUS
by Art Spiegelman
The complete answer to all those who still doubt the potential of comics. Spiegelman is a genius, and no other form could have told this story so well.

WALLACE STEVENS (POET TO POET)
edited by John Burnside
Wallace Stevens speaks more interestingly, and more memorably, about the things that matter most to me than any other poet. I can't imagine being without his work.

THE NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM
by David Thomson
Opinionated, slightly cranky, vastly entertaining, endlessly informative. Of all the reference books I have, this is always the hardest to put down.

COUNTRY OF THE BLIND AND OTHER SELECTED STORIES
by H.G. Wells
In these short stories we can feel a whole genre just beginning to spread its wings, and test its strength, and take to the air.

MOLESWORTH
by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
As any fule kno, this is the best marriage of writer and illustrator since ... well, since William Blake, really. Still funny after 50 years.

SUMMER LIGHTNING
by P.G. Wodehouse
Wodehouse had the extraordinary ability to evoke innocence without being in the least boring, all in a prose style that lightens the spirits like champagne.

THE ART OF MEMORY
by Frances A. Yates
Yates re-imagined the whole intellectual world of the Renaissance, and laid bare the odd and secret beliefs buried in the foundations of the times we still live in today.

© 2008 Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman's Writer's Table will launch in selected Waterstone's stores on Thursday September 4. Find out more at www.waterstones.com/writerstable

Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time

The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time is a list published in book form in 1990 by the British-based Crime Writers' Association. Five years later, the Mystery Writers of America published a similar list entitled The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time. Many titles can be found in both Crime Companions.

The List

* 1. Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time (1951)
* 2. Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (1939)
* 3. John le Carré: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963)
* 4. Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night (1935)
* 5. Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
* 6. Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca (1938)
* 7. Raymond Chandler: Farewell My Lovely (1940)
* 8. Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone (1868)
* 9. Len Deighton: The Ipcress File (1962)
* 10. Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (1930)
* 11. Josephine Tey: The Franchise Affair (1948)
* 12. Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing ... (1952)
* 13. Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose (1980)
* 14. Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male (1939)
* 15. Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye (1953)
* 16. Francis Iles: Malice Aforethought (1931)
* 17. Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (1971)
* 18. Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors (1934)
* 19. Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (1939)
* 20. John Buchan: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
* 21. Arthur Conan Doyle: The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories (1892-1927)
* 22. Dorothy L. Sayers: Murder Must Advertise (1933)
* 23. Edgar Allan Poe: Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1852)
* 24. Eric Ambler: The Mask of Dimitrios (1939)
* 25. Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop (1946)
* 26. Margery Allingham: The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)
* 27. Peter Lovesey: The False Inspector Dew (1982)
* 28. Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White (1860)
* 29. Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986)
* 30. James M. Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
* 31. Dashiell Hammett: The Glass Key (1931)
* 32. Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
* 33. John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
* 34. E. C. Bentley: Trent's Last Case (1913)
* 35. Ian Fleming: From Russia with Love (1957)
* 36. Ed McBain: Cop Hater (1956)
* 37. Colin Dexter: The Dead of Jericho (1981)
* 38. Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
* 39. Ruth Rendell: A Judgement in Stone (1977)
* 40. John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man (1935)
* 41. Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929)
* 42. Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977)
* 43. Ellis Peters: The Leper of St. Giles (1981) (
* 44. Ira Levin: A Kiss Before Dying (1953)
* 45 Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
* 46. Graham Greene: Brighton Rock (1938)
* 47. Raymond Chandler: The Lady in the Lake (1943)
* 48. Scott Turow: Presumed Innocent (1987)
* 49. Ruth Rendell: A Demon in My View (1976)
* 50. John Dickson Carr: The Devil in Velvet (1951)
* 51. Barbara Vine: A Fatal Inversion (1987)
* 52 Michael Innes: The Journeying Boy (1949)
* 53. P.D. James: A Taste for Death (1986)
* 54. Jack Higgins: The Eagle Has Landed (1975)
* 55. Mary Stewart: My Brother Michae (1960)
* 56. Peter Lovesey: Bertie and the Tin Man (1987)
* 57. Susan Moody: Penny Black (1984)
* 58. Len Deighton: Game, Set & Match (1984-1986)
* 59. Dick Francis: The Danger (1983)
* 60. P.D. James: Devices and Desires (1989)
* 61. Reginald Hill: Underworld (1988)
* 62. Mary Stewart: Nine Coaches Waiting (1958)
* 63. Paula Gosling: A Running Duck (1978)
* 64. Michael Gilbert: Smallbone Deceased (1950)
* 65. Lionel Davidson: The Rose of Tibet (1962)
* 66. P.D. James: Innocent Blood (1980)
* 67. Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison (1930)
* 68. Michael Innes: Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)
* 69. Tony Hillerman: A Thief of Time (1989)
* 70. Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon: A Bullet in the Ballet (1937)
* 71. Reginald Hill: Dead Heads (1983)
* 72. Graham Greene: The Third Man (1950)
* 73. Anthony Price:The Labyrinth Makers (1974)
* 74. Adam Hall: The Quiller Memorandum (1965)
* 75. Margaret Millar: Beast in View (1955)
* 76. Sarah Caudwell: The Shortest Way to Hades (1984)
* 77. Desmond Bagley: Running Blind (1970)
* 78. Dick Francis: Twice Shy (1981)
* 79. Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
* 80. Caroline Graham: The Killings at Badger's Drift (1987)
* 81. Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (1938)
* 82. Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981)
* 83. Agatha Christie: Death Comes as the End (1945)
* 84. Christianna Brand: Green for Danger (1945)
* 85. Cyril Hare: Tragedy at Law (1942)
* 86. John Fowles: The Collector (1963)
* 87. J. J. Marric: Gideon's Day (1955)
* 88. Lionel Davidson: The Sun Chemist (1976)
* 89. Alistair Maclean: The Guns of Navarone (1957)
* 90. Julian Symons: The Colour of Murder (1957)
* 91. John Buchan: Greenmantle (1916)
* 92. Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
* 93. Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death (1970)
* 94. Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest (1929)
* 95. Ken Follett: The Key to Rebecca (1980)
* 96. Ed McBain: Sadie When She Died (1972)
* 97. H. R. F. Keating: The Murder of the Maharajah (1980)
* 98. Simon Brett: What Bloody Man Is That? (1987)
* 99. Gavin Lyall: Shooting Script (1966)
* 100. Edgar Wallace: Four Just Men (1906)[1]