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Whoa, ads! Everywhere. Sidebars; skimlinks; sponsored threads; banners, etc. There's a surefire way to kill a forum. The equivalent of reversing to make sure it's dead. This does feel like a step into the dark ages. Maybe we can put up some of these in potentially obtrusive areas: Or just...

After months of debate, media puff pieces, and the like, The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobsen has been awarded the Man Booker Prize for 2010.

The longlist for the Man Booker Prize 2008 has been announced. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga (Atlantic) Girl In A Blue Dress, Gaynor Arnold (Tindal Street) The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber) From A To X, John Berger (Verso) The Lost Dog, Michelle de Kretser (Chatto &...

Nikita Lalwani was today named the winner of the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize for Gifted, a story about a maths prodigy growing up in 1980s Cardiff, published by Penguin Books. Penny Vincenzi, Chair of the Judges, comments,“Gifted is a book of extraordinary range; it is touching, tender...

For the last few years, I’ve been aware of Robin Jenkins’s books, notably his best known work, The Cone Gatherers, as they were perennials on the Scottish Books shelves of local stores. Of the man, however, I knew nothing and was surprised to find that he died as recently as 2005. Surprised for...

Discussion on this book starts 1st September, 2008.

Discussion of this book will start on 1st August, 2008.

July 2008 Book of the Month Embers by Sándor Márai Amazon.com Review In Sándor Márai's Embers, two old men, once the best of friends, meet after a 41-year break in their relationship. They dine together, taking the same places at the table that they had assumed on the last meal they...

Discussion starts on 1st June, 2008.

Since the forum was upgraded recently, you've probably noticed - or may not have - the new tag feature. When creating threads or replying to them, there's a small box under the posting section marked 'Tags'. By adding tags, you bring your own way of thinking to the forum as you can label...

From SFGate:

In honour of forty years of the Booker Prize, the Best Of The Booker shortlist has been announced. A panel of judges has whittled down all the winners (forty-one, I think) to six, which are: The Ghost Road, Pat Barker Oscar And Lucinda, Peter Carey Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee The Siege Of...

Let's build up a head of steam and get June's book sorted out now. Nominations/discussion below, please.

The Pulitzer Prize in Fiction has been won by Junot Diaz for The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao. Runners up were Denis Johnson's Tree Of Smoke and Lore Segal's Shakespeare's Kitchen. 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winners - FICTION, Citation

In a world where books come and go at a seemingly increasing rate, so fast that by the time the Booker, Costas, and Orange have been won, attention turns to the next year’s hopefuls, praise be to the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. This is one award that feels more laidback, if only...

Okay, I've taken the seemingly most popular suggestions for the 2008 Book of the Month and made the above poll. While there were a number of suggestions, I'm keeping the pot to the most discussed/nominated books to ensure the voting spread isn't across a wide range of books (and thus picking the...

Here begins my Roth odyssey. And where better to start than the beginning? So, with that obvious logic in mind, the first in an oeuvre spanning twenty-eight books (a mix of fiction and non-ficton; of standalone and series novels) is Goodbye, Columbus (1959), a novella of around one hundred pages...

Having had the experience of reading Gordon Burn’s fiction - Fullalove, a novel about a hack journalist intruding on the bereaved to get a story - and his non-fiction - Best And Edwards, a literary account of the lightning quick and slow burn deaths of Duncan Edwards and George Best - and...

With the Man Booker 2007 being over, and Self Help (Pravda, to US readers) long since fallen from the competition I approached Edward Docx’s second novel with indifference. The cover, being as basic as it is, didn’t scream out to be read and at over five hundred pages I wasn’t exactly looking...

There seems to be a trend for slim pocket volumes coming with exorbitant prices. First there was André Brink’s The Blue Door and now it’s Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader. Again, at £10.99 for such a slight volume, it was going to have to deliver the goods and, thankfully, it does,providing a...