The Quill Book Awards represent what your neighbors are probably reading. The top books in 19 categories have been selected for 2007 - go here to cast your vote for Book of the Year. Then, tune into the Awards Program on NBC Saturday, October 27, 2007. (I hope Amy Sedaris will be in attendance!) 
Each year, the Kiriyama Prize is awarded to the best two books, both fiction and nonfiction, that represent the many cultures and countries along the Pacific Rim and South Asia. If you would like a little geography lesson, please consult this map from the organization's web site. The judges have cast their vote for 2007! The fiction prize belongs to the darling of book critics everywhere, Mr. Haruki Murakami, for his short story collection Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. If you'd like, you can read my book review from last year. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations -- One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson, won the nonfiction prize. In this book, he described the amazing and sometimes dangerous feat of building over 50 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. You can click on the title or the book cover to check our libraries for availability.
A hearty congratulations is due to Timothy Egan for winning the nonfiction National Book Award this year, for The worst hard time : the untold story of those who survived the great American Dust Bowl.On April 14, 1935, the biggest dust storm on record descended over five states, from the Dakotas to Amarillo, Texas. People standing a few feet apart could not see each other; if they touched, they risked being knocked over by the static electricity that the dust created in the air. The Dust Bowl was the product of reckless, market-driven farming that had so abused the land that, when dry weather came, the wind lifted up millions of acres of topsoil and whipped it around in “black blizzards,” which blew as far east as New York. This ecological disaster rapidly disfigured whole communities. Egan’s portraits of the families who stayed behind are sobering and far less familiar than those of the “exodusters” who staggered out of the High Plains. He tells of towns depopulated to this day, a mother who watched her baby die of “dust pneumonia,” and farmers who gathered tumbleweed as food for their cattle and, eventually, for their children.
Fans of humor, take note - Alan Zweibel has won this year's Thurber Prize for his novel The Other Shulman. Don't know who he is? You should. I know him best as the creator and producer of the once highly amusing television comedy It's Garry Shandling's Show. You may know him as a producer on the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm or as a former writer on Saturday Night Live. You can find his many accomplishments at IMDB.com. He will join the ranks of Jon Stewart, David Sedaris and Christopher Buckley, who were winners from previous years.Shulman is running the New York Marathon--slowly--and while he trudges toward the distant finish line, he ponders the torturous path that brought him to such an unlikely place. In a style that successfully blends the woebegone humor of Woody Allen with the whiplash sarcasm of Jerry Seinfeld, former Saturday Night Live writer Zweibel (cocreator of such comedy classics as Roseanne Roseannadana and Miss Emily Litella) tells the hilarious story of the overweight, stressed-out Shulman, who somehow convinces himself that running 26.2 miles will solve all the problems created by his failing business and flagging marriage.
The National Academies announced the winners of the 2006 Communication Awards. The selection for the Best Book category is 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann. According to the press release, "these prestigious awards recognize excellence in reporting and communicating science, engineering, and medicine to the general public." This book presents new evidence that will shed light on the reality of life in the Americas before European explorers reached these shores. It's not what you learned in school!
Quill Book Awards celebrate the best books of the year in 20 popular categories. Vote now for your favorite nominees. Televised on Oct 28, NBC. General Fiction nominees: Black Swan Green - David Mitchell; A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore; The March - E. L. Doctorow; Suite Française - Irene Nemirovsky; Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen. Voting ends Sept. 30. Vote now at http://www.quillsvote.com/
