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The New Yorker Fiction Forum
Click
here to see what's happening in the fiction of each issue of
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Last Five Issues:
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2013 Book Awards
- National Book Critics Circle Award
- Winner: Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
- The Story Prize
- Winner: Claire Vaye Watkins' Battleborn
- PEN/Faulkner Award
- Winner: Benjamin Alire Sáenz's Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club
- Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- Winner: Kevin Powers' The Yellow Birds
- Best Translated Book Award
- International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- Giller Prize
- Shadow Winner: November
- Winner: November
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2012 Book Awards
- National Book Critics Circle Award
- Winner: Edith Pearlman's Binocular Vision
- PEN/Faulkner Award
- Winner: Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic
- Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- Winner: Teju Cole: Open City
- Best Translated Book Award
- Orange Prize
- Winner: Madeline Miller: The Song of Achilles
- International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- Winner: Jon McGregor: Even the Dogs
- Man Booker Prize
- Winner: Hilary Mantel: Bring Up the Bodies
- Nobel Prize in Literature
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2011 Book Awards
- National Book Critics Circle Award
- The Story Prize
- Winner: Anthony Doerr's Memory Wall
- PEN/Faulkner Award
- Winner: Deborah Eisenberg's The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg
- Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- Winner: Brando Skyhorse: The Madonnas of Echo Park
- Best Translated Book Award
- International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- Winner: Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- Winner: Tomas Tranströmer
- National Book Award
- Winner: Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones
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2010 Book Awards
- National Book Critics Circle Award
- Winner: Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall
- The Story Prize
- Winner: Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
- PEN/Faulkner Award
- Winner: Sherman Alexie's War Dances
- Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- Winner: Brigid Pasulka's A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
- Best Translated Book Award
- PEN/Malamud Award
- Winner: Nam Le & Edward P. Jones
- Orange Prize
- Winner: Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna
- International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- Winner: Mario Vargas Llosa
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Okay…I’ve just finished this novel, so I’m still digesting it. I had started searching for books for my next season of book groups when this novel won the Orange Prize, so I picked it up. (Any suggestions for literary treasures that we can ‘dig deep’ into are most welcome–our theme is love stories from around the world.) Almost half way through, I nearly put it down…but there is something very compelling about it, and it really picks up in the second half. It’s unique, that’s for sure. I’m not certain I would have awarded it a prize, but…hmm…I can see how people could really love it. I’ll be interested to read your post if/ when you get around to reading it. I may use it for my LM book groups; it is a love story–that’s for sure.
Love stories from around the world . . . hmmmm.
I’m sure I’ve read plenty, but I can’t think of many right now. One of my favorites from last year was Buddhadeva Bose’s My Kind of Girl (you can read my thoughts here. I’ll try to think of some more.
As for The Song of Achilles, I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to it given the never-ending pile of books next to me, but if it found its way into that pile with little to no effort from me, I’ll give it a go.