Ben Franklin Awards, Lambda Awards, PEN/Malmud Award, Arab American Award Winners

Several literary award winners and nominees have been announced lately.

Keep reading for the latest on the Benjamin Franklin winners, Lambda Literary Award winners, the 2011 PEN/Malmud Award, and the 2011 Arab American Book Awards.

2011 Thriller Awards

Nominees have been announced for the 2011 Thriller Awards. The awards, given by the International Thriller Writers, will be handed out next month at the 2011 ThrillerFest.

2011 Thrillmaster Award: R.L. Stine

2011 Silver Bullet Award: Karin Slaughter

2011 True Thrill Award: Joe McGinniss

Paper Covers Rock

Title: Paper Covers Rock

Author: Jenny Hubbard

ISBN: 9780385740555

Releases on: June 14

It’s no secret that Young Adult literature is read by adults, and on an increasing level. Paper Covers Rock, I suspect, is a book which will be enjoyed even more by adults than by teens. Any book that inspires readers to pick up Moby-Dick must be, on some level, brilliant.

Orange Prize for Fiction and Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

Orange Prize for Fiction

In a surprising win, this year's Orange Prize for Fiction went to twenty-five year old Tea Obreht for her debut novel The Tiger's Wife. Obreht is the youngest winner in the award's sixteen-year history. Other finalists for the award were: Emma Donoghue for Room, Nicole Krauss for Great House, Kathleen Winter for Annabel, and Emma Henderson for Grace Williams Says It Loud.


Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism
Out of 75 nominees, five finalists have been announced for this year's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Author Lilian Braun Jackson has passed away

Sad news in the literary world this week: prolific mystery author Lilian Braun Jackson died June 4, 2011. Jackson was the author of the popular Cat Who... mystery series. The series began in 1966 with The Cat Who Could Read Backwards. Jackson wrote two sequels and then took an eighteen-year hiatus before continuing the series. In all, there are 29 books in the Cat Who... series, the most recent being The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers, published in 2007. Jackson was 69 years old.

Books into Film

Quick update: Check out our Books into Film page for an update on the casting of the film Mortal Instruments, based on the book by Cassandra Clare.

Mullah's Storm

Title: The Mullah's Storm
Author: Thomas W. Young
ISBN: 9780425242254
Releases: June 7, 2011

Thomas W. Young, a Senior Master Sergeant wtih the Air National Guard, knows war. At the end of his debut novel The Mullah's Storm, Young writes of his experiences and what led to the book. "When I first flew into Afghanistan, what scared me most wasn't the thought of getting shot down and killed. It was the thought of getting shot down and not killed" (p. 275). That fear becomes the basis for his book. What happens when a plane is shot down in a war zone and the passengers are not killed?