New to the Reference Collection : Big Art

Two new gorgeous (and big) art books have been added to the Reference Collection

Georgia O'Keefe : an American Perspective

Over 120 reproductions of O'Keeffe's work are accompanied by expert and insightful commentary on all aspects of the artist's life, influences and paintings.

The chapters are arranged chronologically.


Salvadore Dali

Provides an account of Dali's life and inspirations, alongside large-sized reproductions of his work. His most famous paintings are displayed here as well as his lesser-known portraits and drawings.

Both books are in Springwood Reference.

Like to help an adult learn to read?

Blue Mountains College of TAFE is looking for volunteers to train as tutors of reading and writing to English-speaking adults. Free training is available and is due to start soon.

For more details call 02 4753 2127.

As little as 3 hours of your time each week can make a big difference.

Diagram Prize Shortlist

The shortlist of six has been announced for the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year Award by Bookseller.com. Here they are :

1. The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Ellen Scherl and Marla Dubinsky
2. Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich by James A Yannes
3. Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes by Daina Taimina
4. Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots by Ronald C Arkin
5. What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua? by Tara Jansen-Meyer
6. Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter by David Crompton

You can read a small precis of each book here and see the longlist here.

The winner should be announced in London overnight so watch this space! My money's on the Collectible Spoons.

Katoomba Library closure

Due to heavy construction work please note that Katoomba Library will be closed all day next Wednesday 3 March. This is to allow the removal of awnings outside the main entrance of the library.

Blackheath Library will open on this day from 10am–5pm in compensation for the Katoomba closure.

The After Hours Returns bin will remain open at Katoomba during the construction work.

Thanks for your understanding during this time.

The Lost Man Booker Prize longlist has lost two books already!

The Lost Man Booker Prize, a one-off prize to capture Booker-worthy novels that missed out on nominations in 1970 because of a change to the administration of the prize has had a few changes in its longlist already.

Two books, The Fire-dwellers by Margaret Laurence and Head to Toe by Joe Orton have been ruled ineligible, Laurences because it was published in 1969 and would have been eligible in that year and Orton's because it was published in 1971 and so would have been eligible then.

Added to the list however, is Paul Bailey's Trespasses.

Wonder if this will be the last shuffle of the pack? I would have thought that determining publication dates a fairly simple business, wouldn't you?

Seniors Week at the Library

Seniors Internet Sessions

Do you want to learn how to search the Internet? As part of the 2010 Seniors Week Program, Blue Mountains Libraries are pleased to offer Seniors Internet Sessions. These free 1 hour sessions will give you an introduction to searching methods and how to find interesting, relevant websites.

The Internet sessions will all take place between 9am and 10am and will be held on the following days at these locations:

• Blackheath Library on Tuesday March 9th
• Springwood Library on Monday March 15th
• Wentworth Falls Library on Tuesday March 16th
• Katoomba Library Friday on March 19th
• Blaxland Library Friday on March 26th
• Lawson Library on Tuesday March 30th

Bookings are essential. Contact the Library directly.

General telephone enquiries for the Upper Mountains: 4780 5750.

General telephone enquiries for the Lower Mountains: 4723 5040.

Web address: http://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/

Book Chain - The Pages

The Pages by Murray Bail

Plot summary (from Fantastic Fiction) : Murray Bail's first novel since Eucalyptus is a beguiling meditation on friendship and love, on men and women, on landscape and the difficulties of thought itself.

On a family sheep station in the interior of Australia, a brother and sister work the property while their reclusive brother Wesley Antill, spends years toiling away in one of the sheds, writing a philosophy. Now he has died.

Erica, a philosopher, is sent from Sydney to appraise his work. Accompanying her is Sophie who needs a distraction from a string of failed relationships. Her field is psychoanalysis. These two women, each with a different view of the world, meet a situation they have not experienced before - with surprising results.

Book Chain comments :

• Strangely dissatisfying. The potential to engage my interest was there but the characters felt incomplete/hollow. I'm not sure that I got it, or if there was anything to get!
• Agree with above - everytime the characters/stroy felt like it was getting itself together it fell apart. At times I didn't know what was going on - it just trailed off into the mist.
• I actually enjoyed this book. It was a gentle read about different characters' thoughts and lives. The description of outback Australian farming life rang true.
• A very pleasant, light read.

What is a Book Chain?

Northern Territory Book of the Year

Every Secret Thing by Marie Munkara has won the 2010 NT Book of the Year Award.

The novel, which also won the David Unaipon award for unpublished works by Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders in 2008, was published in September.

‘I'm just astonished!' Munkara said of her win.'The calibre of the other authors, they're amazing, to be singled out like this, I don't know what to say.'

Books in the shortlist included:

• Cassie by Barry Jonsberg
• Every Secret Thing by Marie Munkara
• Listen Deeply, let these stories in by Kathleen Kemarre Wallace and Judy Lovell
• My Private Pectus by Shane Thamm
• The Devil you Know by Leonie Norrington
• The Red Highway by Nicolas Rothwell

Bringing Them Home interviews online

To mark the second anniversary of the apology to members of the Stolen Generations, the National Library has launched a special website featuring the oral history interviews with people who were involved in or affected by the removal of Indigenous children from their families.

The aim of the project has been to collect and preserve the stories of affected Indigenous people and others, including police, missionaries and administrators.

The Bringing Them Home interviews are being made available in consultation with the people interviewed or their next of kin.

The link has been added to our recommended sites. Check it out here.

PC

International Mother Language Day

Today, 21st February, is International Mother Language Day.

International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by UNESCO's General Conference in November 1999 and has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.

Not only is the aim to safeguard the linguistic and cultural heritage of humanity by encouraging mother tongues, but the promotion of teaching other languages to promote tolerance and improve international communication.

Links from the UN International Mother Language website include The UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages - click on an area of the world and find out which languages have already died out and which are endangered.

All the things you can do with a book

These are the areas in which the Kindle and iPad just don't match up.

Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2010

The Commonwealth Writers' Prize shortlists for each region have been released.

Australian authors dominate in the South East Asia and Pacific shortlist.

The shortlisted writers for South East Asia and Pacific Best Book are:

• Summertime by J.M Coetzee (Australia)
• A Good Land by Nada Awar Jarrar (Australia)
• The Adventures of Vela by Albert Wendt (Samoa)
• Singularity by Charlotte Grimshaw (New Zealand)
• The People's Train by Thomas Keneally (Australia)
• Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (Australia)

The shortlisted writers for South East Asia and Pacific Best First Book are:

• The Ice Age by Kirsten Reed (Australia)
• After the fire, a still small voice by Evie Wyld (Australia)
• Look Who's Morphing by Tom Cho (Australia)
• Document Z by Andrew Croome (Australia)
• Come Inside by Glenys Osborne (Australia)
• Siddon Rock by Glenda Guest (Australia)

In April the regional finalists will be announced with two overall winners being announced on 12 April.

The Director of the Commonwealth Foundation, Mark Collins, said: "The Commonwealth Writers' Prize is distinct and unique in that the books that win often have strong insight, spirit and voice about the incredible diversity, history and society of the Commonwealth. The Prize aims to reward the best of Commonwealth fiction written in English and in doing so, spots rising talent and creates new literary figures from the Commonwealth. This is the Prize to watch for tomorrow's best-sellers."

Read more about the Commonwealth Writers' Prize here.

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England : a Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer


Vintage Books, 2009


344 pp.



Plot summary : Ian Mortimer takes you on a tour of Medieval England. What does it look like? Smell like? Sound like? What would you wear? What would you eat? Where would you stay? What if you were rich, or poor?

Book Review : This is a fascinating book. Written to you, as if you were following him around on a tour, Mortimer explains and describes everyday Medieval life in great detail. Some chapters, naturally, are more interesting than others, depending on your own interests.

This is in small paperback format, written for adults but I think, with more illustrations and in larger format, it could be done aimed at children in middle primary to early high school and bring that period to life for them, make them really think what life would be like.

This is from the chapter on health and hygiene when discussing the plague :
"You have no idea what destruction a disease can wreak upon society. When you see people consumed from within, as if they are being eaten alive by some invisible creature - when you look at the faces of mothers and fathers staring at their feverish blood-vomiting infants, lying in their own beds, in the very places where they parted with a kiss the previous evening, then you might get an inkling. When you are there in 1348, and have been relieved of any complacent assumptions that anyone will survive this hideous calamity, and have come face to face with the very real prospect that it will annihilate the whole of humanity, and that God has deserted Mankind, then you will start to realise how destructive the plague is". (p.200)

Reviewed by : Alba

Other books in the Library by Ian Mortimer :

• The greatest traitor : the life of Sir Roger Mortimer
• The perfect king : the life of Edward III
• 1415 : Henry V's year of glory
  

Big Book Sale

One for your diary!

Blue Mountains City Library is holding its annual

Big Book Sale

Blaxland Community Centre
Friday February 26th

12pm-5pm

and

Saturday February 27th

9am-5pm

Come along & grab a bargain!

Alison's Picks - February 2010

Alex Miller : Lovesong

Hilary Mantel : Wolf Hall

Anne Tyler : Noah’s Compass

Cate Kennedy : The world beneath

Annie Dillard : Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

What Library staff are reading . . .

• Antonia Fraser’s 40th anniversary edition of Mary Queen of Scots – she writes a very funny prologue/introduction
• I also slogged my way through The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, hating almost every word, but it was for book group so I suffered anyway . . .
• Twitter for Dummies by Laura Fitton, Michael E. Gruen and Leslie Poston. A great tool for getting to know the ins and outs of tweeting, including how to get the most out of Twitter. Read it to find your own tweet-voice!
• People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. An epic story weaving between the experiences of the restorer of a precious Jewish tome, and many of the lives it has passed through beforehand
• Maps to Ecstasy: a healing journey for the untamed spirit by Gabrielle Roth. For those not familiar with Roth, she is pioneer of dance and movement therapy, believing emotions are stored in the body and can be worked through physically. This book is an account of her interesting beginnings in this field, as well as an invitation for the reader to explore the power of movement for themselves
• Adrian Mole – The Prostrate Years by Sue Townsend. It is so funny!!!!! I am now re reading all the previous Adrian Mole diaries
• Chalcot Crescent by Fay Weldon - If you are a fan of Fay Weldon this book will not disappoint. As always she writes herself onto every page. 2013 and the world gone array after the financial crash
• The man in the wooden hat by Jane Gardam - Beautifully written as ever
• I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna - not that I’m not enjoying it but I do HAVE to read it (for book group)
• Girl with a pearl earing by Tracy Chevalier – love the painting! – the book – ho hum
• Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby – the disassociated thirty-somethings have always been well-captured by Hornby. This book is no different but what I did like about it was the seamless addition of social media into the storyline. This story explored how Internet and chatrooms can be, and change, people’s isolated lives. While the social media was not central to the storyline, the tale could not have panned out the way it did without the role of the Internet. Good novel that explores those whose lives revolve around chatrooms and Internet and not in a sleazy way. . .
• Our story begins by Tobias Wolff. He’s highly regarded as a short story writer
• I thought it was time I read Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I’d enjoyed the film several times and whilst reading this witty story it’s hard to dismiss Audrey Hepburn from your memory
• The Bee Hut by Dorothy Porter
• I read On Digestion by Gay Bilson, which I found fascinating and very well written
• Dreams of Speaking by Australian writer Gail Jones. If you’re looking for fast-paced action give this one a miss. It’s a dream-slow reflection on human communication, told in the language of the poet
• My life as me and Handling Edna by Barry Humphries
• Never have your dog stuffed by Alan Alda
• The third victim by Lisa Gardner
• I discovered a new Age of Sail writer – Dewey Lambdin, we only have two of his but they are very good; he is an American writer which makes a change from the usual British stuff. The Gun Ketch, an Alan Lewrie Adventure is set in the Bahamas in the 1780s, after the American War of Independence and before the Napoleonic Wars. I liked the detailed characterisation, the faultless historical and naval detail, the lovely recreation of the various forms of Georgian English as well as the accents of the southern US and the Caribbean; it has pirates galore and great handling of action - both on the waves and with the ladies. Now if I can just get hold of his other titles!
  

More odd titles - these with a singular theme

Hard on the heels of the last post about the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year are these titles. I found them on one of my favourite blogs, Judge a Book by its Cover, some off the wall reference material for travellers. I thought they were made up initially . . . but a little librarian-y research reveals I was so so wrong!

First, we have What Bird Did That?: A Driver's Guide to Some Common Birds of North America. Helps you identify which bird to blame for that stuff covering your entire windshield!

A UK version, What Bird Did That?: The Comprehensive Field Guide to the Ornithological Dejecta of Great Britain and Europe is available also.

Hope the Aussie editors are on the case . . .

Second is Flattened Fauna : A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets, and Highways (Revised).

Cars can have a big impact on the ecosystem. Not only do they spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, they can also decimate whole populations of animals by running them over - apparently 1/3 of the koalas on the Iluka Peninsula were run over by cars.

Now when you visit North America you'll be able to distinguished a squished woodchuck from a splattered opossum!

Third there is That Gunk on Your Car: A Unique Guide to Insects of North America. They come at you so fast and leave such a colorful mess that you can't help but wonder "what the hell was that?" (This is also useful for motorcycle riders to help figure out what kind of protein they just swallowed.)

Fun for the whole family! And it's a steal at only $91.34 (?UD$) via Amazon

And finally, when you get home from your trip, tired and sweaty, you'll want to know what kind of animals crapped all over your lawn while you were away. Was it the neighbor's cat again? Or are coyotes coming down from the hills for the summer? Or were the rumors of bear sightings true?

Now you'll know exactly with the indispensible What Shat That?: A Pocket Guide to Poop Identity. Behind this unassuming cover is a wealth of valuable information. Am I the only one who finds the "pocket guide" bit of that title unsettling?

PS: In the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year list there is one book we do have in the Library, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith in which the traditional P&P story is told but with Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters having been to Ninja school and being very effective zombie slayers. I thought it a hoot!

Katoomba Library closure on Tuesday 16 February

Due to some intensive construction work in the Civic Centre area next Tuesday 16th February it will be necessary to close Katoomba Library to the public from 2pm onwards.

The overnight returns bin will be open for returns.

Katoomba library customers wishing to borrow items can visit Wentworth Falls Library after 2pm instead - open hours at Wentworth Falls will be extended until 5pm.

The Library staff apologise for any inconvenience, as posted previously, Katoomba Library may be closed from time to time over the next few months because of the work being done around the Civic Centre.

Get her off the pitch

Get her off the pitch : How sport took over my life by Lynne Truss
Fourth Estate, 2009
308 pp.


Plot summary : In 1996 Lynne Truss, columnist and TV critic for The Times in London was invited to lunch by the sports editor and his deputy. Having previously written in her column that she regularly tipped the sports section of the paper into the bin each morning "as it was quite clear that the basic qualification for a reader of this section was possession of a pair of testicles", she was on the alert. Ms Truss was commissioned to go to the then upcoming Euro 96 soccer championships and write about them as someone with little knowledge of or interest in sport.
And so Ms Truss embarks on a four year detour into the very masculine ("Lynne, what the f*** are you doing here?") and baffling (does this Euro thing take place every year?) world of sport and writes of her adventures in boxing, soccer, tennis, golf and cricket.


Review : Supposed to be "hilarious, perceptive and at times very moving," this is an interesting book and while I smiled at what she'd written, hilarious is an exaggeration as far as I'm concerned. (For hilarious sports writing try Chapter 7 of Bill Bryson's Down Under/In a Sunburned Country where he writes about cricket - side-splittingly funny).

It is interesting though and well-worth the read. I can certainly identify with the lack of interest in sport (I like taking part in sport but, on the whole, find watching it boring) and am baffled by the absolutely slavish addiction the men in my household have to cricket, rugby league and the Bathurst 1000. Seeing behind the scenes was fun.

I'd like to know what a sports fan would make of it though. Anyone out there?


Reviewed by : Alba

Other books in the library by Lynne Truss:

• Eats, shoots & leaves : the zero tolerance approach to punctuation
• A certain age : the radio monologues
• Making the cat laugh : one woman's journal of single life on the margins
• Talk to the hand : the utter bloody rudeness of everyday life (or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door)
• Tennyson's gift
• The girl's like spaghetti : why, you can't manage without apostrophes!
• Going loco : a comedy of terrors

Diagram Prize Very Longlist announced

This is one of my favourite literary prizes. The Bookseller's annual Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year award is self explanatory. This year it has drawn a record number of submissions (with a corresponding record number of rejected titles) forcing custodian Horace Bent to issue a "Very Longlist" for the very first time. Mr Bent, who blamed Twitter for the rise in suggestions, had 90 submissions this year compared with 32 last year.

A panel of judges, chaired by Horace Bent, will announce the shortlist on 19th February. The public will then be able to vote for their favourite from the shortlist and the title with the most votes by the time voting closes on 21st March will be crowned the winner. The winner will be officially revealed on Friday 26th March. No hanging about with this prize.

So here is the Very Long List:
100 Girls on Cheap Paper
A Tortilla is Like Life
Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology
Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter
An Intellectual History of Cannibalism
Bacon: A Love Story
Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands UniversityLibrary of Manchester 1741-1845
Bondage for Beginners
Briefs for the Reading Room
Budgeting for Infertility
Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich
Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes
Curbside Consultation in Cornea and External Disease
Cute Yummy Time
Dental Management of Sleep Disorders
Father Christmas Needs a Wee
Fluffy Little Kitten in Fluffy's Brother
Food Digestion and Thermal Preference of Toad
Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots
How YOU Are Like Shampoo: For Job Seekers
I Stopped Sucking My Thumb…Why Can't You Stop Drinking?
I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears
Is the Rectum a Grave?
Jokes by the Not So Famous Redneck
Map-based Comparative Genomics in Legumes
Mickey Mouse, Hitler and Nazi Germany
My Hare Line Meets the Brown Rabbit
Obama Guilty of Being President While Black
Peek-a-poo: What's in Your Diaper?
Planet Asthma: Art and Acitivty Book
Plough Music
Plug-in Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington?
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Bean Conference
Schoolgirl Milky Crisis
Soft Drink & Fruit Juice Problems Solved
Ten Stupid Things ThatKeep Churches from Growing
The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
The First Home-Built Aeroplanes
The Great Dog Bottom Swap
The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin
The Origin of Faeces
The Quotable Douchebag
The True History of Tea
The Wild World of Girly Men and Masculine Women - And Why Americans Suffer from So Many Other Idiotic Syndromes!
Venus Does Adonis While Apollo Shags a Tree
What Horses Do For Us
What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua?

Anyway, read this item by Horace Bent

None of them are familiar but if you feel one or more would be a useful addition to the Blue Mountains library collection just ask a friendly staff member for a Purchase Suggestion form.

Gone so soon

As recently as October 2008 we blogged about the creation by the West Australian government of a literary prize that would rival the Man Booker Prize. That prize was the Australia-Asia Literary Award, the richest in the Asia Pacific region with $100,000 going to the winner who, that first year, was David Malouf for The Complete Stories.

Then about this time last year the WA government announced the whole prize was under review. Book Award Tragic has been keeping an eye on things and
reports that the Australia-Asia Literary Award has been axed by WA Culture and Arts Minister, John Day.

Mr Day said while the government supported the original intent of the AALA, there was no capacity for it to continue. "Given the economic pressures, the AALA does not represent the most prudent use of funds and is unsustainable," he said.

Australian Book Review Favourite Australian Novel of all time

Last year we posted about the Australian Book Review conducting a poll to find the Favourite Australian novel of all time. Did you vote?

Well, now the results are out and the winner was Cloudstreet by Tim Winton.

‘A perennial favourite since its publication in 1991, [Cloudstreet] was the overwhelming favourite-by a margin of three to one to its nearest rival, Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, which was closely followed by Patrick White's Voss and Winton's most recent novel, Breath,' said ABR editor Peter Rose. Rose said the poll had received thousands of votes for almost 300 novels.

The top 20 novels in the poll are:

1. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton


2. The fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson


3. Voss by Patrick White


4. Breath by Tim Winton


5. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey


6. My brother Jack by George Johnston


7. The secret river by Kate Grenville


8. Eucalyptus by Murray Bail


9. The man who loved children by Christina Stead


10. The tree of man by Patrick White


11. My brilliant career by Miles Franklin


12. Monkey grip by Helen Garner


13. Dirt music by Tim Winton


14. The vivisector by Patrick White (also nominated for the Lost Booker Prize)


15. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay


16. Remembering Babylon by David Malouf


17. For the term of his natural life by Marcus Clarke


18. The merry-go-round in the sea by Randolph Stow


19. Carpentaria by Alexis Wright


20. The slap by Christos Tsiolkas

A list of all 290 nominated titles can be found on the ABR website.

Library Lovers Day

For centuries February 14 has been recognised as a day for romantics. Now Library Lovers everywhere are claiming the day for the objects of their special affection - Australia's libraries.

People are devoted to their library and not just on one day of the year. Millions of library lovers across Australia must be right!

All our branches will be celebrating Library Lovers Day with chocolate hearts, stickers and bookmarks.

On Monday 15th February a special morning tea will be held in Springwood Library to celebrate both Library Lovers Day and the official launch of the newly refurbished Springwood Library.

Everyone is welcome to attend - for more details call Springwood Library 4723 5040

Library Lovers Day is organised by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and Public Libraries Australia (PLA).

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Plot Summary : It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger and her younger brother are being taken by their mother to live with a foster family outside Munich. Liesel's father was taken away on the breath of a single, unfamiliar word - Kommunist - and Liesel sees the fear of a similar fate in her mother's eyes. On the journey, Death visits the young boy, and notices Liesel. It will be the first of many near encounters. By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down. (Source : Angus and Robertson)

Review : This is a story about the power of words to make worlds. It is honest, original, heartbreaking and beautifully written. The characters are so real and the story lingers in your mind long after you have finished the book.

Reviewer : Carolyn

The Lost Man Booker Prize longlist

At the beginning of the week The Lost Man Booker Prize longlist was announced.

The Lost Man Booker Prize is a one-off which aims to honour books that were published in 1970 and which missed out on the opportunity to win the Booker Prize because of a change in the way the prize was administered. In 1971, two years after its inception, the Booker Prize ceased to be awarded retrospectively and became a prize for the best novel in the year of publication. At the same time the date on which the award was given moved from April to November and so there was a whole year's gap when fiction published in 1970 missed out on being eligible for the prize.

The Lost Man Booker Prize is the brainchild of Peter Straus, honorary archivist to the Booker Prize Foundation. He comments, "I noticed that when Robertson Davies's Fifth Business was first published it carried encomiums from Saul Bellow and John Fowles both of whom judged the 1971 Booker Prize. However judges for 1971 said it had not been considered or submitted. This led to an investigation which concluded that a year had been excluded. I am delighted that, even in a Darwinian way, this year, with so many extraordinary novels, can now be covered by the Man Booker Prize."

The judging panel consists of three judges who were were born in or around 1970. They are journalist and critic Rachel Cooke, ITN newsreader Katie Derham and poet and novelist Tobias Hill.

The shortlist of 6 novels will be announced in March and the overall winner will be announced in May. The international reading public will decide the winner by voting via the Man Booker Prize website, when we will be able to get behind Australian born Shirley Hazzard or the amazing Patrick White - keep reading this blog for more details of that when they emerge.

Anyway, here is the longlist. If you click on the link you go to the Lost Man Booker Prize page and can read more about each author and book in the list. Enjoy.

• Brian Aldiss - The Hand Reared Boy
• H.E.Bates, - A Little Of What You Fancy?
• Nina Bawden - The Birds On The Trees
• Melvyn Bragg - A Place In England
• Christy Brown - Down All The Days
• Len Deighton - Bomber
• J.G.Farrell - Troubles
• Elaine Feinstein - The Circle
• Shirley Hazzard - The Bay Of Noon
• Reginald Hill - A Clubbable Woman
• Susan Hill - I'm The King Of The Castle
• Francis King - A Domestic Animal
• Margaret Laurence - The Fire Dwellers
• David Lodge - Out Of The Shelter
• Iris Murdoch - A Fairly Honourable Defeat
• Shiva Naipaul - Fireflies
• Patrick O'Brian - Master and Commander
• Joe Orton - Head To Toe
• Mary Renault - Fire From Heaven
• Ruth Rendell - A Guilty Thing Surprised
• Muriel Spark - The Driver's Seat
• Patrick White - The Vivisector

Carolyn's Books of the Month - February 2010

Best read for the month : Markus Zusak The Book Thief

Thriller : Richard Montanari The Devil’s Garden

General : Tracy Chevalier Remarkable Creatures

Australian Author : Bryce Courtenay The Story of Danny Dunn

Saga/Romances : Chelsea Cain Sweet Heart

Crime : David Baldacci True Blue and Kathryn Casey Blood Lines