2010 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Awards Announced

The winners of the 2010 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Awards, sponsored by the Midwest Booksellers Association and chosen by member bookstores, are:
Fiction: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Nonfiction: The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow
Poetry:The Chain Letter of the Soul: New and Selected Poems by Bill Holm
Children's Picture Book: Otis by Loren Long
Children's Literature: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Honor Books: are:
Fiction: Driftless by David Rhodes
Nonfiction: Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François
Poetry: Beloved on the Earth: 150 Poems of Grief and Gratitude edited by Jim Perlman, Deborah Cooper, Mara Hart, Pamela Mittlefehldt
Children's Picture Book: Moose on the Loose by Kathy-jo Wargin, illustrated by John Bendall-Brunello
Children's Literature: Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Shamus Award Nominees

The Shamus Award is given annually by the Private Eye Writers of America to honor excellence in the private investigator genre. The winner will be announced at this year's Bouchercon in October. The nominees are:
Best PI Hardcover:
The Silent Hour by Michael Koryta
Where the Dead Lay by David Levien
Locked In by Marcia Muller
Schemers by Bill Pronzini
My Soul to Take by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Best First PI Novel:
Loser's Town by Daniel Depp
The Last Gig by Norman Green
The Good Son by Russel D. McLean
Faces of the Gone by Brad Parks
Chinatown Angel by A. E. Roman

2010 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize

Sam Shepard has won with the 2010 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement. Tribune editor Gerould Kern said, "In selecting Shepard, we recognize his significant influence on American culture. He transcends boundaries of form, with his talent stretching from the stage to page." Shephard is the Renaissance man: playwright, screenwriter, author, stage and film director, musician, songwriter and actor. He has received a Pulitzer Prize (Buried Child,, Drama Desk and Obie Awards, and Tony nominations for his playwriting; an Oscar nomination for his film acting (The Right Stuff); a British Academy of Film and Television Arts,BAFTA, nomination for his screenwriting (Paris, Texas); and Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for his television acting. "Sam Shepard is the premiere dramatist of rural America," Tribune theater critic Chris Jones said. "His work chronicles wide-open spaces, domestic dysfunction and long, brooding silences on the prairie." Shepard joins an illustrious group of Literary Prize winners which includes 2009 winner Tony Kushner, Arthur Miller, Tom Wolfe, August Wilson, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, E.L. Doctorow and David McCullough.
The Chicago Tribune honored the 2010 Heartland Prizes recipients Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (nonfiction) and E.O. Wilson for Anthill (fiction) Skloot told the Tribune that the award is her first for the book. "I was absolutely ecstatic when I found about it. I was very humbled to be in (the previous winners') company." The past two recipients of the non-fiction Heartland Prize were Nick Reding's Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town and Garry Wills Head and Heart: American Christianities. Anthill is the 81-year-old biologist/naturalist's debut novel. He has had a notable career, winning two Pulitzer Prizes (for On Human Nature, and The Ants, with Bert Holldobler. Wilson told the Tribune: "The greatest surprise and the greatest pleasure from getting the Heartland award is that it's for fiction. For 43 years I've been publishing non-fiction. I thought I'd never publish anything else. But I had one novel in me." The previous two winners of the fiction Heartland Prize were Jayne Anne Phillips' Lark & Termite and Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project.

National Public Radio Top 100 Thrillers

The National Public Radio, NPR, audience nominated some 600 novels to the NPR "Killer Thrillers" poll and cast more than 17,000 ballots. The final roster of winners is diverse, varying in style and period from Dracula to The Da Vinci Code, Presumed Innocent to Pet Sematary. What these top 100 titles share, however, is that all of them are fast-moving tales of suspense and adventure. Who is the NPR audience's favorite thriller writer? It's the King, of course — Stephen King, who landed six titles in the top 100. Lee Child comes next, with four winning books. And, at three titles each, Michael Crichton, Dennis Lehane, Dan Brown and Stieg Larsson tie for third.
The top Thrillers are:
1. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. Kiss the Girls by James Patterson
4. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
7. The Shining by Stephen King
8. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
9. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
10. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
11. Dracula by Bram Stoker
12. The Stand by Stephen King
13. The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver
14. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
15. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
16. A Time to Kill by John Grisham
17. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
18. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
19. The Day of the Jackal by Daphne Maurier
21. Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
22. It by Stephen King
23. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
24. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
25. Jaws by Peter Benchley
26. The Alienist by Caleb Carr
27. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
28. Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
29. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
30. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
31. No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
32. Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane
33. Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
34. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
35. Subterranean by James Rollins
36. Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
37. Salem's Lot by Stephen King
38. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
39. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre
40. The Poet by Michael Connelly
41. The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin
42. Cape Fear by John MacDonald
43. The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker
44. Pet Sematary by Stephen King
45. Dead Zone by Stephen King
46. The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
47. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre
48. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
49. Tell No One by Harlan Coben
50. Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn
51. The 39 Steps by John Buchan
52. Blowback by Brad Thor
53. The Children of Men by P.D. James
54. 61 Hours by Lee Child
55. Marathon Man by William Goldman
56. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
57. 206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
58. Psycho by Robert Bloch
59. The Killing Floor by Lee Child
60. Rules of Prey by John Sandford
61. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
62. In the Woods by Tana French
63. Shogun by James Clavell
64. The Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
65. Intensity by Dean Koontz
66. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
67. Metzger's Dog by Thomas Perry
68. Timeline by Michael Crichton
69. Contact by Carl Sagan
70. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
71. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
72. The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
73. Charm School by Nelson DeMille
74. Feed by Mira Grant
75. Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child
76. Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
77. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
78. The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders
79. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
80. The Brotherhood of the Rose by David Morrell
81. Primal Fear by William Diehl
82. The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry
82. The Hard Way by Lee Child [tie]
84. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
85. Six Days of the Condor by James Grady
86. Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler
87. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
88. The Eight by Katherine Neville
89. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
90. Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
91. Bangkok 8 by John Burdett
92. The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva
93. Hardball by Sara Paretsky
94. The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte
95. The Deep Blue Good-by by John MacDonald
96. The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais
96. Berlin Game, by Len Deighton [tie]
98. A Simple Plan by Scott Smith
99. Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
100. Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

2010 RITA Awards

The Romance Writers of America recently announced the winners of the 2010 RITA awards:
Inspirational Romance: The Inheritance by Tamera Alexander
Novel With Strong Romantic Elements: The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal
Romance Novella: "The Christmas Eve Promise" by Molly O'Keefe in The Night Before Christmas
Contemporary Series Romance: A Not-So-Perfect Past by Beth Andrews
Contemporary Series Romance Suspense/Adventure: The Soldier's Secret Daughterr by Cindy Dees
Historical Romance: Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas
Regency Historical Romance: What Happens In London by Julia Quinn
Paranormal Romance: Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole
Romantic Suspense: Whisper of Warning by Laura Griffin
First Book: One Scream Away by Kate Brady
Contemporary Single Title Romance: Too Good To Be True by Kristin Higgins
Young Adult Romance: Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Auel's Final Book in Earth's Children to be published in March 2011

Author Jean M. Auel's prehistoric book series, Earth's Children, will end with the sixth and final novel to be published in 2011. Auel's U.K. publisher Hodder & Stoughton has announced that The Land of Painted Caves will be published March 29 next year. Auel started her series in 1980 with The Clan of the Cave Bear, in which an orphaned Ayla, a Cro-Magnon, is adopted by a group of Neanderthals. The book was turned into a movie in 1986 starring Daryl Hannah.