Latest news

Kiran Millwood Hargrave's debut The Girl of Ink & Stars has been selected for the BookTrust's brand new campaign, Time to Read. Research shows that a child who reads for fun will do better at school, even in subjects like maths. The campaign promotes reading in primary schools all over the country, encouraging children to pick up new books, and parents to read with them for ten minutes every day. Click here for more information about the Time to Read Campaign, including tips and reading suggestions for parents and teachers. Click here to see the booklist.

Stefanie Posavec and Giorgia Lupi, creators of Dear Data, a year-long analog data drawing project, have been nominated in the graphics category for the prestigious Beazley Designs of the Year awards. The prize, for 2D work where graphic design is the key to the project?s success ? this could be beautifully executed packaging, books, magazines, identities, digital, films, animation, street art, exhibition design, posters or typefaces, will be announced later on this year. Find out more about Dear Data here: http://www.dear-data.com/theproject

It was announced today that The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing, an "electric, dazzling" investigation into what it means to be alone, has been shortlisted for the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize. Launched in 2012 to remember the late Faber author who wrote across a wide range of subjects, from celebrity to serial killers and politics to contemporary art, The Gordon Burn Prize seeks to celebrate the writing of those whose work follows in his footsteps. The winner will be announced on Friday 7th October at the opening of Durham Book Festival, a Durham County Council festival produced by New Writing North. The winning writer will receive a cheque for ?5,000 and the opportunity to undertake a writing retreat of up to three months at Gordon Burn?s cottage in the Scottish borders. Also shortlisted are the Man Booker Prize-longlisted titles All That Man Is by David Szalay and Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, And The Sun Shines Now by Harry Parker and A Woman on the Edge of Time: A Son?s Search for his Mother by Jeremy Gavron. The judges of the 2016 prize are the novelists Jenn Ashworth and William Boyd, journalist and writer Rachel Cooke, and the artist and author Harland Miller. Ashworth said: ?It?s been an honour and a fascinating privilege to be involved in reading and discussing such a varied and accomplished selection of books for this year?s prize. I admire Gordon Burn?s work for its uncompromising precision, its fearlessness and its humanity. On the shortlist we have fine examples of writers working across a number of genres and in both fiction and non-fiction who we believe are working with that same commitment to truth-telling and have created works which explore who and why we are, without sentiment or cynicism.? Boyd praised the "wonderfully rich and eclectic shortlist", saying that "every book is a genuine contender".

Alex Bellos, author of Snowflake Seashell Star, Alex's Adventures in Numberland and Alex Through the Looking Glass, was on Saturday night presented with the Dr Katharine Giles Science blog award for his blog, Adventures in Numberland. The award was presented by the Association of British Science Writers at the Blue Dot festival at the Jodrell Bank observatory in Cheshire. The chair of the judges, Martin Ince, said Bellos?s blog, which is on maths and is part of the Guardian?s Science Blog Network, ?reveals amazement in a few tight sentences drawing you in even if you sometimes get lost along the way?. The prize is awarded in memory of Dr Katharine Giles, a scientist working at the Centre for Polar Observation and Measurement at University College London, who died in 2013. Click here to view the full awards list.

Unlike most other literary prizes, the Dagger in the Library is awarded for an entire body of work rather than an individual book. Elly Griffiths is the author of the Dr Ruth Galloway series of forensic archaeology mysteries and the Stephens & Mephisto series, and her work has consistently received critical acclaim. The first Dr Ruth Galloway book, The Crossing Places, won the Mary Higgins Clark Award in 2011, and was shortlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year, as were The Outcast Dead in 2014 and The Ghost Fields in 2015.

The paperback release of Little Boy Blue, the fifth book in M.J. Arlidge's DI Helen Grace series, has gone straight in at number 10 on the Sunday Times Bestseller List, after the hardback also hit the bestseller charts in March this year. A huge marketing campaign supports this book, in which DI Grace investigates a body in a nightclub. Detective Inspector Helen Grace is no stranger to tragedy. But when a body is found in a Southampton nightclub, the death cuts too close to the bone. Hiding her personal connection to the victim - and a double-life which must remain secret at all costs - Helen becomes a woman possessed, working her team around the clock to chase down every lead. As the killer strikes again, the investigation takes its toll not only on Helen but also her senior officers. Tempers flare, friendships fray and Helen faces an impossible choice. Confess her sins and lose control of the case? Or keep living a lie, protecting her darkest secrets, and risk getting trapped in this tangled web? But whatever she does, this killer will not stop until the truth is revealed: there are some fates worse than death... Little Blue Boy follows the successes of the rest of the series, maintaining an unbroken streak of top ten bestsellers. The first in the series, Eeny Meeny, was the biggest selling debut crime novel of 2014. The sixth book, Hide and Seek, will be published in September.

Sunjeev Sahota's Booker-shortlisted The Year of the Runaways was honoured with the Literature prize at Sunday's South Bank Sky Arts Awards. Now celebrating their 20th anniversary, the awards are presented annually to "the very best of British culture and achievement." Read more about the awards and the winners here.

Sunjeev's Sahota's second novel, the Booker-shortlisted The Year of the Runaways, has won the Encore Award for 2015, which celebrates the literary achievements of outstanding second novels. Alex Clark, chair of the judges, said: "This year's award brought us some truly marvellous writing, and a shortlist that thrilled us all. Aside from the novels under immediate consideration, we were excited by the thought of the books that were to come; each of these writers displays an ambition and talent that we are confident will continue to develop in fascinating ways. After much conversation, we were delighted to award the Encore to a book that - to invoke to a clich? - simply took our breath away. We await Sunjeev Sahota's next work with eagerness. And having judged the prize for many years, I am once again convinced of its usefulness, and grateful to its founder Lucy Astor for her longstanding and generous commitment." Julia Copus said: "Of all the books we looked at, this was the one that kept me up at night; the one whose extraordinary characters I went to bed worrying about, and hurried back to at every opportunity." Ted Hodgkinson said: "Despite strong competition from a superb shortlist, we were bowled over by the boundless compassion and daring sweep of Sunjeev Sahota's The Year of the Runaways."

Dr Hannah Fry co-presents, with Clara Amfo, the first in a new series of 1 hour programmes on Radio 1 Xtra, called MUSIC BY NUMBERS. In the first episode they explore Coldplay?s career, calculating the maths behind the music in order to discover how their success adds up. The series will continue on Tuesdays 9-10pm on Radio 1 Xtra.

Elly Griffiths' crime novel Smoke and Mirrors has been nominated for the Last Laugh Award 2016. The award runs as part of the Internation Crime Fiction Convention - CrimeFest - which is being held this year in Bristol from 19th-22nd May 2016. The award is given to the best humorous crime novel first published in the British Isles in 2015, and the winner will receive a commemorative award made of Bristol Blue Glass. The winner will be announced at a dinner on Saturday 21st May 2016.

Gavin McCrea's debut novel Mrs Engels joins Lisa McInerney's Glorious Heresies and Julia Rochester's The House at the Edge of the World on the shortlist of the 2016 Desmond Elliott Prize for a first novel. Chair of judges Iain Pears said: ?These are hugely ambitious, complex, confident works by three extremely talented writers and it is wonderful that the Desmond Elliott Prize exists to help them reach the wide audience they so richly deserve. With the demise of the Guardian First Book Award, a prize like this is all the more important to new writers.? Pears also said: ?McCrea has cleverly included just enough historical detail to set a very evocative scene, then lets his cast tell the story. The writing always surprises, his characters are compelling without having to be likeable and, as all of we judges noted, Mrs Engels is perhaps the most feminist novel we read for the Prize.? McCrea?s citation reads: ?The cover of Mrs Engels shows a lady mounted on a zebra, a famously unridable steed. Yet here she poses steady of seat and gaze ? truly the axis of this turning world, shrewd observer if shrewish commentator. Around her the circus whirls. Gavin McCrea: ringmaster and recorder of this troupe of theoretical acrobats, social lion tamers and communard clowns, schooled but not subdued into a performance as full of brio as it is free of intellectual snobbery. His is a narrative canvas as eventfully crowded as it is richly meaningful, daring to instruct as it is drawn to please.?

Kiran Millwood Hargrave's "simply stunning debut" The Girl of Ink & Stars has been chosen as Waterstones' Children's Book of the Month for May 2016. "That rare thing ? a genuinely timeless, heart-on-its-sleeve adventure ? this fictional debut from Oxford-based Kiran Millwood Hargrave is as beautifully produced as it is written." More than perhaps anything else, The Girl of Ink & Stars is a tale of pure courage, of how belief and self-will can overcome all. Isabella is a cartographer?s daughter, the devastated, monster-filled world once mapped by her father now largely off-limits beyond her city?s walls. When her best friend goes missing within this wasteland, Isabella ? with her unique knowledge of maps and stars ? implicitly understands she can find her, immediately electing to lead a mission to bring her friend home.

Elly Griffiths' The Ghost Fields has been longlisted for the 2016 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, one of the most prestigious crime writing prizes in the country. Now in its twelfth year, the award was created to celebrate the very best in crime writing. The longlist comprises 18 titles and was selected by an academy of crime writing authors, agents, editors, reviewers, members of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Programming Committee and representatives from T&R Theakston Ltd and WHSmith. The shortlist of six titles will be announced on 31st May. The overall winner will be decided by the judges alongside a public vote, which opens on 1st July and closes 15th July. The winner will be announced on 21st July, on the opening night of the 14th Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. Executive director of T&R Theakston, Simon Theakston, said: ?2016?s longlist shows that the crime genre is in incredibly robust health. It?s a showcase of some of the best authors in the world, and shows that the genre is the most influential when it comes to shaping publishing and popular culture. It?s incredibly exciting to see such strong new voices on the list, and it will no doubt be a hotly-contended award.? Gemma Rowland, Literature Festivals Manager at Harrogate International Festivals, said: ?The list demonstrates that even the giants of the genre are constantly kept on their toes, with debut voices as serious contenders. Last year?s winner was a debut from Sarah Hilary. It really shows whoever wins this year will know they?ve been pitted against the biggest talent at work today.?

Edward Dusinberre's Beethoven for a Later Age has been selected for Radio 4's Book of the Week next week. 5 episodes of readings from the book will be broadcast throughout the week, the first on Monday 4th April at 9.45am. In the first episode, Edward Dusinberre recalls his first season as the Takacs Quartet's first violinist. As he and his three fellow performers set out to perfect their performance of Beethoven's Opus 18, no 1 he is preoccupied by questions of more individual and more integrated expression in the musical ensemble. He also finds that adapting to life as a touring musician has it's challenges. Click here to view Episode 1: An Audition.