This year's Waterstones 11, the major initiative created to uncover the best in debut fiction from around the world, is dominated by female talent, including three Random House Group authors.Announced on Thursday at Waterstones' flagship store, the list is seen as an indicator of potential prize contenders and those expected to go on to achieve critical and commercial success. On the list are Cornerstone author Jenni Fagan, Transworld author Rachel Joyce and Vintage author Grace McCleen.The list in full (in alphabetical order):1. The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan (William Heinemann)2. Absolution by Patrick Flanery (Atlantic)3. Shelter by Frances Greenslade (Virago)4. The Art of F...
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John Burnside has won the 2011 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry with Black Cat Bone (Cape). Burnside was chosen from a field of eight highly-regarded poets, including the Poet Laureate. Black Cat Bone also won the 2011 Forward Prize. The Judges of this year's prize were Gillian Clarke (Chair), Stephen Knight and Dennis O'Driscoll.
Gillian Clarke, Chair of the judges, said: "Amongst an unprecedentedly strong and unusually well-received shortlist, John Burnside's Black Cat Bone is a haunting book of great beauty, powered by love, childhood memory, human longing and loneliness. In an exceptional year, it is an outstanding book, one which the judges felt grew with every reading."
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Random House Children's Books has teamed up with Swapit and Readathon to promote the hilarious Donut Diaries series by Anthony McGowan and David Tazzyman. Swapit users can enter a competition to design their own donut flavour which Anthony will write into book 3! They can also submit their questions about the Donut Diaries to Anthony who will be filmed answering the best of the bunch, plus re...
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Random House Speakers - www.randomhousespeakers.co.uk - is an exciting new service for authors, offering an opportunity for paid speaking engagements worldwide. Launched in response to the growing demand for speakers in the corporate market, it will provide authors with a year-round promotional platform outside of the publication calendar. Random House Speakers will represent auth...
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Ten books, including two titles published by The Random House Group, are soon to become the titles everyone is talking about on TV's best known literary discussion forum The TV Book Club, when the series returns to More4 on Sunday 29th January.The ten-part series launches with international bestseller and debut Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson published (Transworld). Watson won a Cr...
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Richard and Judy have launched their eight new Spring Book Club titles which include two Random House Group books: S J Watson's Before I Go To Sleep (Transworld) and Rachel Simon's The Story of Beautiful Girl (Cornerstone)Each title has customised digital content, offering the ability to either scan the QR code to immediately download the podcast of their chosen title, or download the first chapter of any one of the additional seven Spring Book Club titles free via text.The other six titles on the list are:Midwinter Sacrifice by Mons Kallentoft (Hodder) My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young (HarperCollins) Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (Penguin) The Paris Wife by Pau...
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Chef Anna Hansen, poet and playwright Dannie Abse, and Picasso biographer and historian John Richardson were delighted to feature in the 2012 New Year's Honours list.Hansen, chef and author of The Modern Pantry published by Ebury was awarded an MBE for services to the Restaurant Industry. A culinary prodigy with a fresh and contemporary take on food, her renowned restaura...
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It's official!
Century's very own fitness guru, Rosemary Conley, will be appearing in ITV's Dancing on Ice 2012!
The paperback of her book, The Secrets of Staying Young, is published this week with a fantastic two-day serial appearing in the Daily Express this week.
Follow Rosemary on twitter for all her Dancing on Ice news on @RosemaryConley and @DancingonIce
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To launch Stop What You're Doing and Read This!, a book of essays about the transformative power of reading, Random House Group Chairman and Chief Executive Gail Rebuck put forward the case for reading (in whatever format) in The Guardian on New Year's Day. Please click here to read her piece online. The book is a collection from some of the country's finest authors and advocates for reading including Michael Rosen, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson and Tim Parks. A version of Michael Rosen's essay appeared in The Guardian's G2 (2nd January) - click here to ...
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Caitlin Moran's How to Be A Woman (Ebury) has won the Galaxy Book of the Year.Moran's book beat 10 other contenders chosen by industry experts to be crowned the overall winner by a public vote. These included The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst (Waterstone's UK Author of the Year, Picador); A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French (Specsavers Popular Fiction Book of the Year, Penguin) and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin Daily Telegraph Biography of the Year (Viking).Moran said: "Obviously Rear Of The Year is the one I've always been gunning for, but since I found out it's judged on 'form' rather than 'sheer volume', then Book of the Year is not only a total honour and thr...
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