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We are delighted to announce that The Dynamite Room by Jason Hewitt (Simon & Schuster) and Acts of Omission by Terry Stiastny (John Murray) have been selected to long list for the Authors? Club Best First Novel Award 2015.The full list of 12 books were selected from a record number of more than 60 submissions by a panel of Authors' Club members after intense and wide-ranging debate. They are, as follows: The Letter Bearer by Robert Allison (Granta) A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray (Hutchinson) The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (Picador) Academy Street by Mary Costello (Canongate) The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson (Little, Brown) The Fair Fight by Anna Freeman (Weidenfeld) Ishmael?s Oranges by Claire Hajj (Oneworld) Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (Penguin) The Dynamite Room by Jason Hewitt (Simon & Schuster) The Restoration of Otto Laird by Nigel Packer (Sphere) In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman (Picador) Acts of Omission by Terry Stiastny (John Murray) The shortlist will be made public in May, and the shorted authors will read from their work at Foyles bookshop, 107 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0DT, on Wednesday 27 May. The winner will be announced ? and the ?2,500 prize awarded ? by this year?s guest adjudicator, the writer Susie Boyt, at a reception on Wednesday 17 June at the National Liberal Club in London. Jack Wolf won the prize last year, for his debut The Tale of Rawhead and Bloodybones

Two Janklow & Nesbit authors are on the prestigious longlist for the 2015 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. M.J. Arlidge's Eeny Meeny and The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths are joined by authors including Lee Child and Ian Rankin. Now in its eleventh year, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award was created to celebrate the very best in British and Irish crime writing. The longlist is selected by an academy of crime writing authors, agents, editors, reviewers, members of the Crime Writing Festival Programming Committee and representatives from T&R Theakston Ltd and WHSmith. The overall winner will be decided by a panel of judges with the winner of the prize announced by Simon Theakston at an award ceremony hosted by Mark Lawson on 16th July on the opening night of the 13th annual Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. More information here: http://harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/crime/award/

Graphic novelist and artist, Henny Beaumont, is taking part in an event entitled, Graphic Brighton & Quick Strips as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival. In association with Myriad Editions and the University of Brighton, and now in its second year, Graphic Brighton brings together graphic novelists and comics creators whose work gives voice to otherwise marginalised or under-represented groups. It kicks off this Friday evening with a panel on gay Manga at 7pm followed by Myriad event Quick Strips, at 8.30pm, in which twelve comics creators will have five minutes each to present their work. Saturday offers panels, talks and workshops by comics writers, artists, publishers and researchers. Friday evening is a free, ticketed event. Doors open at 6.30pm. Saturday costs ?10 or ?6 for concessions and starts at 9.30am. For more information and to book, click here.

Lucy and her father, Professor Stephen Hawking, were awarded the 2015 UNSW Medal for Science Communication, in an unforgettable ceremony at The Sydney Opera House, this weekend. Professor Hawking wowed audiences by beaming in from Cambridge via hologram technology thanks to a partnership with Cisco and UNSW's Big Questions Institute. Professor Crossley congratulated Lucy Hawking on being a great communicator of science who initiated the ?George? series of children?s books, co-written with her father, that have sold in territories all over the world. ?Educating and inspiring the next generation of scientists is one of the most important things we can do. Just as Lucy has been inspired by her father Stephen, I hope the books they have written together continue to inspire generations to come,? Professor Crossley said. Lucy Hawking said it was a very great honour to receive the UNSW medal and to share it with her father. ?We both passionately believe in the importance of communicating science to the widest audience possible and the youngest audience possible. This is a lovely piece of recognition of the work we have done.? The annual UNSW Medal for Science Communication was established in 2014 by Professor Crossley to honour individuals who have shared their knowledge and scientific insights with a broad audience ? informing, inspiring and engaging the public on scientific topics and issues.

It was announced this morning that Charles Cumming has been put forward for the CrimeFest eDunnit Award for the best crime fiction ebook first published in both hardcopy and in electronic format in the British Isles in 2014. The winning author receives a cash prize as well as a commemorative Bristol Blue Glass vase. The nominees are: ? Linwood Barclay for No Safe House (Orion Publishing Group) ? Lawrence Block for The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Orion Publishing Group) ? Charles Cumming for A Colder War (HarperCollins) ? Chris Ewan for Dark Tides (Faber & Faber) ? Greg Illes for Natchez Burning (HarperCollins) ? Thomas Mogford for Hollow Mountain (Bloomsbury) ? Thomas Sweterlitsch for Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Headline) ? Andrew Taylor for The Silent Boy (HarperCollins)

Check out this lovely piece about Diana Athill in the Guardian, today. Diana Athill published her previous memoir, a Costa award-winning, and bestselling, reflection on ageing and death, at the age of 90. Intending it to be her final book, she called it Somewhere Towards the End. But the end, it turns out, is still a way off, as Athill is currently writing a further volume of memoir, Alive, Alive Oh! And Other Things That Matter, a collection of work that reflects on memories from her life which have risen to the surface as she approaches 100. It will be published by Granta next year, just in time for her 99th birthday!

Musique au Ch?teau du Ciel, the French edition of Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, has been awarded the Grand Prix des Muses. He was in Paris last week to receive the prize, which, now in its twenty-second year, is awarded by the prestigious Fondation Singer-Polignac to books on classical, jazz and traditional music published in the French language.

From 30 March to 2 April, Janklow and Nesbit UK will be travelling to Italy for the Bologna Children?s Book Fair, a leading international event for publishers, literary agents, illustrators and authors held annually since 1963. With over 25,000 publishing trade representatives from more than 75 countries, the city of Bologna becomes the stage to a celebration of the exciting and imaginative work the children?s sector of publishing has to offer. Rebecca Folland, the head of our Rights Department, will be taking the opportunity to present our list of authors and their work to the international publishing community, with the aim of putting their work on the global stage. Rebecca will be negotiating foreign translation and publishing rights to ensure our authors reach an international audiences.

Tune in to Radio 4 this week to listen to Dylan read from his incredible memoir The Utopia Experiment: The Utopia Experiment is a true story that you just couldn't make up - one man's attempt to survive a global catastrophe by setting up a commune in Scotland. While lecturing in robotics, academic Dylan Evans became increasingly concerned by the visible impacts of global warming, population increase, terrorism - and by our inability to cope with a doomsday scenario in a world engineered to just-in-time living. The concern became an obsession and Evans left his post to run an experiment. He set up a camp that would create the conditions for a post-apocalyptic world. It was established in the Scottish Highlands with a collection of people chosen for talents and skills necessary in a life without technology or comforts. The resulting story is a Lord of the Flies for the modern day, treating serious and normally sombre topics with dark humour. At its heart, however, is one man's well-intentioned dream and the price he paid for trying to do something good. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b059crs2

We are hugely proud to announce that Xiaolu Guo has been longlisted for the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for her novel I Am China. Shami Chakrabarti, Chair of judges, says of the longlist: ?The Prize?s 20th year is a particularly strong one for women?s fiction. All judges fought hard for their favourites and the result is a 2015 list of 20 to be proud of ? with its mix of genres and styles, first-timers and well-known names from around the world." The judges must now whittle these 20 books down to a shortlist of six, before choosing an overall winner to be announced on 3rd June 2015. Here is the list, in full: Rachel Cusk: Outline Lissa Evans: Crooked Heart Patricia Ferguson: Aren?t We Sisters? Xiaolu Guo: I Am China Samantha Harvey: Dear Thief Emma Healey: Elizabeth is Missing Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven Grace McCleen: The Offering Sandra Newman: The Country of Ice Cream Star Heather O?Neil: The Girl Who Was Saturday Night Laline Paull: The Bees Marie Phillips: The Table of Less Valued Knights Rachel Seiffert: The Walk Home Kamila Shamsie: A God in Every Stone Ali Smith: How to be Both Sara Taylor: The Shore Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread Sarah Waters: The Paying Guests Jemma Wayne: After Before PP Wong: The Life of a Banana

Great piece in The Observer by Adam Rutherford about how genetics renders the idea of race meaningless. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/01/racism-science-human-genomes-darwin Adam's fourth coming book, Know Thyself is partly about this: each of the sections within it is a story from human history, re-told with the knowledge born of 21st century genomics. For the first time, we have the tools to match up the narratives of our history ? the journey out of Africa, the Aryan invasion of India, the dynastic wars of the European renaissance, the colonisation of America - with the stories locked in our DNA.

To coincide with the arrival of the beautiful proof edition of Mrs Engles (pictured here), Gavin McCrea announces the launch of his new website. Definitely worth a look: www.gavinmccrea.com

"Written in a prose style that could be described as ?accessible scientific?, The Utopia Experiment should probably be a mandatory handbook for any slightly nesh person fantasising about living off-grid." The Guardian "The account of the collapse of the experiment is searingly honest; there is not a hint of self pity or recrimination against anyone but himself. The book makes fascinating reading..." The Sydney Morning Herald

?That this first novel has been hotly-tipped comes as no surprise? the reader can?t help but be snagged by its atmospheric, intensely-imagined strangeness? Smaill?s heartfelt message ? that we banish discord at our peril ? couldn?t ring out any clearer.? The Daily Mail "The Chimes, by the New Zealand poet Anna Smail (Sceptre, 12 February), has already picked up praise from Eleanor Catton and Kevin Powers ? Will it be the novel of 2015? Watch this space." The Independent ?This is a story that rivets us from the beginning but, for those wanting more, there are delicious depths that change an excellent story into an equally excellent thought provoking fable. As if that isn't enough, it also convinces us that Anna is a very clever lady. ... hugely compelling ... Oh yes, this is definitely a 'Wow!' book.? Bookbag ?For a story about music, The Chimes is a triumph on the printed page? SFX