Now for the Nibbies ...

And now it's time for the Nibbies, as the British Book Awards are affectionately known, a whole cluster of awards decided by publishers, booksellers and the general public, and reflecting (i think it's fair to say) more popular, rather than rarefied literary, taste.

Among the winners :

Ian McEwan picks up the Galaxy Book of the Year for On Chesil Beach, and Reader's Digest make him Author of the Year.

Richard and Judy vote Khaled Hossieni's A Thousand Splendid Suns, their Book of the Year.

Catherine O'Flynn is Waterstones' Newcomer of the Year.

Kim Edwards' The Memory Keeper's Daughter wins Sainsbury's Book of the Year.

And J.K. Rowling gets the Book People Outstanding Achievement Award.

The complete list of awards and shortlisted titles here.

Lindsay Irvine takes a look at this year's awards in the Guardian.

Nibbling the Nibbies

The British Book Awards (sponsored by chocolate maker Galaxy and nicknamed The Nibbies) were announced a few days back. And the winners are:

Author of the Year
Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion
Biography of the Year
Peter Kay - The Sound of Laughter
Children's Book of the Year
Ricky Gervais* - Flanimals of the Deep
Book of the Year
Conn and Hal Iggulden - The Dangerous Book For Boys
Crime Thriller of the Year
Ian Rankin - The Naming of the Dead
Newcomer of the Year
Victoria Hislop - The Island
Popular Fiction Award
Marian Keyes - Anybody Out There
Sports Book of the Year
Steven Gerrard - Gerrard: My Autobiography
TV & Film Book of the Year
Lauren Weisberger - The Devil Wears Prada
Decibel Writer of the Year
Jackie Kay - Wish I Was Here
Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year
Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder
Lifetime Achievement Award
John Grisham

The award celebrates best selling authors and the shortlist for each category can be found here and pictures of the winners here.

*I am so out of touch with things British, living here, that I didn't know that Ricky Gervais (who you might have seen in Extras on BBC Entertainment) is also a children's author and the creator of Flanimals. (I love Extras!)

First Fictions

A lovely article from the Guardian in which six authors talk about the launch of their debut novel and the long hard road to getting there.

Among the featured writers is Charles Chadwick, about to be published for the first time at the age of 72 (which makes me feel like a spring chicken and full of spring hopefulness). He talks about how he kept on writing even when it did not look as if he would ever see his work in print. For him, the love of writing was an end in itself :

So why go on writing with little or no hope of publication? Svevo once said: 'Write what one must. What one needn't do is publish.' Is it that one has to learn to do it for its own sake? There's nothing odd, and certainly now in the least heroically tenacious, about that. There are millions of people out there who weave tapestry, make furniture and pots, write poetry, paint watercolours because that is what they enjoy doing and want to get better at. The creative imagination seems to have a life and persistence of its own. Another imperative is to take trouble to do things properly. When you see someone having a shot at painting a few houses and trees and clouds or whatever, you don't feel like tapping them on the shoulder and saying: 'Why bother with all that detail; you'll only shove it away in your garage or give it to Uncle Frank and Aunt Ethel who won't know the difference?'

Amen to that!