The Malaysian Insider :: Books
The Malaysian Insider :: Books |
| Authors James McBride, George Packer win National Book Awards Posted: 20 Nov 2013 08:59 PM PST It was chosen from a short list of books by authors including Rachel Kushner, previous National Book Award winner Thomas Pynchon, Jhumpa Lahiri and George Saunders. "I didn't prepare a speech. I really didn't think I was going to be up here tonight," McBride said. "It sure is nice." Packer won the non-fiction prize for "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America," a story about the United States that runs from 1978 to 2012 told through the lives of Americans from varying walks of life. It competed in a category dominated by historical works by Wendy Lower, Jill Lepore, Alan Taylor and Lawrence Wright. "This is an incredible honour," Packer said after receiving the prize at the 64th annual National Book Awards. "I feel very lucky to be given this award." Mary Szybist won the poetry prize for "Incarnadine" and Cynthia Kadohata took home the young people's literature award for "The Thing About Luck." In addition to the bronze statue, winners will also receive $10,000. "Ragtime" author Doctorow, 82, received the 2013 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters for his body of work spanning five decades. A previous National Book Award winner for fiction in 1986 for "World's Fair," Doctorow was also a finalist in the same category four other times. Previous recipients of the award include Joan Didion, Elmore Leonard and Norman Mailer. Maya Angelou, whose groundbreaking autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is an American classic, was awarded the 2013 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. "I am delighted," Angelou, 85, said in an interview ahead of the ceremony. "To be given the award for lifetime achievement is really quite a statement." The finalists in the four categories were whittled down from 1,432 books submitted for the awards, including 408 in fiction and 517 in non-fiction. – Reuters, November 21, 2013. |
| What’s in that “Fifty Shades of Grey”? Just cocaine, traces of herpes virus Posted: 20 Nov 2013 03:00 PM PST The professors decided to run the ten most popular books at the Antwerp library through bacteriology and toxicology tests to discover how germy those loaners really are. The novel "Tango" – a romance by Pieter Aspe – also tested positive for herpes. All ten of the books contained traces of cocaine, but not enough so that readers would feel the effects – yet due to today's sensitive drug testing methods, they might test positive for the drug, the researchers said. Still, Jan Tytgat, a professor of toxicology at the Catholic University of Leuven, told the Flanders News website that the traces of both herpes and cocaine were too small to be harmful to readers of the book. – AFP/Relaxnews, November 21, 2013. |
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