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Last Week's Abebooks.co.uk Top Ten Bestsellers
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1. Troubles by J.G. Farrell
2. Dark Sun by Robert Muchamore
3. Effective Coaching by Myles Downey
4. The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
5. Foxes Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
6. Collins Scottish Wild Flowers by Scott Michael
7. How Far Can You Go? by David Lodge
8. The Singapore Grip by
J.G. Farrell
9. The End of the Street by David Dobereiner
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Fiction Sales in Canada Week ending May 16, 2010:
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1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Larsson, Stieg
2. The Girl Who Played with Fire, Larsson, Stieg
3. Savor the Moment, Roberts, Nora
4. Heart of the Matter, Giffin, Emily
5. Run for Your Life, Patterson, James
6. Wicked Prey, Sandford, John
7. Dead in the Family, Harris, Charlaine
8. Relentless, Koontz, Dean
9. The Forgotten Garden, Morton, Kate
10. Best Friends Forever, Weiner, Jennifer
11. Secret Daughter, Gowda, Shilpi Somaya
12. The Host, Meyer, Stephenie
13. Pirate Latitudes, Crichton, Michael
14. Just Take My Heart, Clark, Mary Higgins
15. One Fifth Avenue, Bushnell, Candace
16. Guardian of Lies, Martini, Steve
17. The 9th Judgment, Patterson, James
18. Beatrice and Virgil, Martel, Yann
19. Innocent, Turow, Scott
20. The Last Song, Sparks, Nicholas
21. Assegai, Smith, Wilbur
22. Sarah's Key, Rosnay, Tatiana
23. The Best of Times Vincenzi, Penny
24. Twenties Girl, Kinsella, Sophie
25. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, Larsson, Stieg
26. The Book of Negroes, Hill, Lawrence
27. Summer on Blossom Street, Macomber, Debbie
28. Return to Sender, Michaels, Fern
29. Trial, Patterson, James
30. This Body of Death, George, Elizabeth
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BC Bestsellers
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For the week of May 16, 2010
Adult Bestseller List
1.The Shores We Call Home by Carol Evans
2.Trauma Farm by Brian Brett
3.Darwin’s Bastards ed. by Zsuzsi Gartner
4.Quinoa 365 by Patricia Green & Carolyn Hemming
5.The Best of Chef at Home by Michael Smith
6.Policing the Fringe by Charles Scheideman
7.Small Beneath the Sky by Lorna Crozier
8.The Way of a Gardener by Des Kennedy
9.In the Fabled East by Adam Shroeder
10.Incontinent on the Continent by Jane Christmas
Children’s Bestseller List
1.The Little Hummingbird by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
2.Field Guide to the Identification of Pebbles by Eileen Van der Flier-Keller
3.Miga, Quatchi and/et Sumi by Michael Murphy & Vicki Wong
4.Island Kids by Tara Saracuse
5.Fraser Bear by Maggie de Vries

Ian Thomson wins £10,000 Ondaatje prize for "spirit of place."

Almost eerily topical, The Dead Yard, Ian Thomson's book about the gritty underbelly of Jamaica, hailed for its candid portrait of a 'corrupted Eden' Ian Thomson's investigation into the gritty underside of "corrupted Eden" Jamaica has won him the Ondaatje prize, which goes to the book which has best evoked the spirit of a place.

Thomson's The Dead Yard sees the author walking the streets of Jamaica, describing its poverty, gang rule and police brutality, meeting its people and exploring how the country has changed since its independence in 1962. "'You visitors are always getting it wrong,'" he is told by one Jamaican. "'Either it's golden beaches or guns, guns, guns, guns. Is there nothing in between?'"

Beating shortlisted titles including Guardian journalist Madeleine Bunting's "biography of an English acre" The Plot, Kachi A Ozumba's novel of contemporary Nigeria The Shadow of a Smile and Daniyal Mueenuddin's short story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, The Dead Yard "will be a revelation" for those "to whom Jamaica means only music, sunshine and cricket", said judges Kathleen Jamie, Steve Jones and Penelope Lively in a statement.

"His candid portrait – vigorous, illuminating and sometimes shocking – allows Jamaica to speak for itself," they said. "Thomson is a brave writer who takes himself into unexpected, sometimes edgy places. The island he describes is a place of verdant beauty; history-ridden, post-colonial with an undertow of disappointment and violence. This is the best kind of travel writing: stimulating, educative and evocative."

Thomson, who has also written a book about Haiti, Bonjour Blanc, and whose Primo Levi biography won him the WH Heinemann award seven years ago, was announced winner of the £10,000 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje prize last night. He joins a roster of previous winners which includes Adam Nicolson, Graham Robb and Hisham Matar.

BBC Samuel Johnson Non-fiction Prize shortlist announced

Andrew Ross Sorkin Andrew Ross Sorkin was published in the New York Times while he was at school

Andrew Ross Sorkin has been shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction for his first book, charting the financial crisis.

The US writer's best-seller is up against five other works, including an account on North Korea and a maths made simple book by Alex Bellos.

A look at the life of King Charles II and Luke Jennings' coming of age and fishing book are also in the running.

The winner will receive a cheque for £20,000 at a London ceremony on 1 July.

This year's shortlist is completed by Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham, in which he argues cooking civilised early man.

Sorkin, 32, has written for the New York Times since 1995 and had more than 70 articles published by the time he graduated from high school.

The award-winning business reporter looks at how the financial crisis swept around the world in his book.

Evan Davis, presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme and chairman of the judges, said the shortlist was "an extraordinarily eclectic selection of books".

He added: "There is something for everyone, whether it be maths or fishing.

"Perhaps the only common feature of these books is the passion and sheer enthusiasm of the authors for their subjects."

Ian McEwan novel gets top pig honour

Ian McEwan and the Solar book jacket McEwan beat four other novelists to the peculiar porcine prize

Booker-winning novelist Ian McEwan has brought home the bacon thanks to a quirky literary prize that will see a pig renamed in his honour.

The writer has been named the recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for his comic novel Solar.

As part of his award, a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig will be renamed Solar at the Hay literary festival this week.

Now in its 11th year, the prize honours novels thought to have best captured the comic spirit of PG Wodehouse.

McEwan, whose other novels include Atonement, Enduring Love and Amsterdam, will meet the pig on Friday during a visit to the festival in Hay-on-Wye, Powys.

He will also be presented with a jeroboam of champagne and a collection of PG Wodehouse works.

David Campbell, judge and publisher of Everyman's Library, said the decision to reward Solar had been "easy [and] unanimous".

"This is a brilliantly funny book by a great writer," he added.

Focusing on the issue of climate change, Solar tells of a Nobel prize-winning physicist who gets the chance to save the world from environmental disaster.

Previous winners of the prize that also had pigs named after them include DBC Pierre's novel Vernon God Little and A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.

New UK Novelists

Three novelists vie for £10,000 Desmond Elliott prize
Maria Allen taken by Richard Tatham, Jacob Polley taken by C.Sandy Friend
Jacob Polley, Maria Allen and Ali Shaw and will find out if they have won in June.

A former bookseller, an acclaimed poet and a teacher have made the final shortlist for the Desmond Elliott prize for first time novelists.

Bookmakers have made Before the Earthquake by teacher Maria Allen favourite to win the £10,000 prize.

Talk of the Town by poet Jacob Polley and The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw make up the shortlist.

The prize was set up in 2007 in honour of the publisher and literary agent Desmond Elliott, who died in 2003.

The three shortlisted books cover a range of genres from a coming-of-age tale to historical fiction and magical realism.

"Bold, original and ambitious"

The judging panel is made up of writer Elizabeth Buchan, literary editor of The Observer William Skidelsky and leading independent bookseller James Daunt.

Speaking on behalf of the judges, Elizabeth Buchan said: "We were struck by the boldness, originality and ambition of the three finalists."

She continued: "With settings ranging from early twentieth century southern Italy, to Carlisle in the 1980s to the mysterious St Hauda's Land, their novels make up a diverse, intriguing and hugely rewarding shortlist."

The winner is announced on 23 June at Fortnum & Mason, in London.

Author Edward Hogan won last year's prize for his novel Blackmoor, set in a fictional mining village against the backdrop of the miners' strike.

Australian Book News: Coetzee Wins $40,000 Prize

CATE Kennedy didn't have any delusions that she would win the NSW Premier's Prize for fiction from heavyweight fellow-nominees David Malouf and J.M. Coetzee. After all, although her intriguing, spare and essentially Australian short stories are widely admired, the novel in contention, The World Beneath, was her first.

Winning the People's Choice Award at the NSW Premier's Literary Prize award ceremony in Sydney last night, however, seems to have pleased her even more than the big one would have.

"Readers are the very people you're writing for," she said. "You're writing because you want to be read, to have your book thought about and talked about.

"And these people have taken the trouble to go to their computers and vote. I'm really pleased and gratified."

Adelaide-based South African writer Coetzee won the $40,000 Christina Stead Prize for fiction for Summertime, the third instalment of his autobiographical trilogy that began with Boyhood and Youth.

Fairfax foreign correspondent Paul McGeough won the $40,000 Douglas Stewart prize for non-fiction -- and Book of the Year -- for King Khalid: Mossad's failed hit . . . and the rise of Hamas.

Jane Campion shared the $60,000 script writing award for her feature film Bright Star with Aviva Ziegler for her ABC television documentary Fairweather Man on painter Ian Fairweather.

No award was given in the playwriting category, for which, controversially, no short-list was nominated this year.

Andrew Croome's Document Z, a fictionalised account of the Petrov affair that won The Australian/Vogel award for an unpublished manuscript in 2008, won the $5000 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing.

The $30,000 NSW Premier's Prize for Literary Scholarship was awarded to Philip Mead for Networked Language: Culture and History in Australian Poetry.

Kennedy's sharply observed writing is the result perhaps of a particularly wide exposure to life. An airforce child born in Britain, she moved around bases in Australia before finishing her education in Canberra.

She worked in community theatre and as a librarian, living in rural Victoria and Mexico, before fetching up in Benalla, northeast of Melbourne. She married a farmer and has a four-year-old daughter.

The World Beneath has been shortlisted for the 2010 Barbara Jefferis Award.

Nebula Awards Winners

This year's Nebula Award winners, who were honored Saturday by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, include:

Novel: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books)

Novella: The Women of Nell Gwynne's by Kage Baker (Subterranean Press)

Novelette: "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" by Eugie Foster (Interzone, February 2009)

Short Story: "Spar" by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, October 2009)

Ray Bradbury Award: District 9, Neill Blomkamp (director) and Terri Tatchell (writer)

Andre Norton Award: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

The Real Story Behind Stieg Larsson And The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

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The Real Story Behind Stieg Larsson And The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
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Conspiracy theories rage about his death

http://www.booktrade.info/i.php/27121