Guardian First Book Award 2013 - Longlist

Last Friday The Guardian announced the longlist for their 2013 First Book Award. It is unique in that it includes fiction and non-fiction as well as a 'readers' choice' nomination. The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced in November. It is a superb list of books, all must-reads and it is great to see Donal Ryan's The Spinning Heart from Lilliput Press, Booker Prize nominee and also first reviewed on this blog back in November http://dublinduchess.blogspot.ie/2012/11/the-spinning-heart-by-donal-ryan.html.

Good luck to all nominees! 

  
(All book precis from www.theguardian.com)
Fiction
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
This is a visceral, lyrically told story of displacement that moves from a Zimbabwean ghetto – grimly named Paradise – to the US. In her narrator, Darling, Bulawayo has captured a fresh, authentic young voice.
Fiction
The Hive by Gill Hornby (Little, Brown)
Which mum will be queen bee? A comedy with sting about playground politics that also offers witty insights into class, child-rearing and female friendship.
Fiction
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (Picador)
Dripping with atmosphere and bad weather, this historical novel about the last woman to be executed in Iceland is based on a true story that haunted its Australian author for years.

  
Fiction
Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach (Picador)
An exploration of identity and the risks of social media via the story of Leila, a computer games addict who agrees to pose as vivacious, bipolar Tess. An unnerving thriller for the Facebook generation
Fiction
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (Doubleday Ireland)
Twenty-one different narrators build up a portrait of a contemporary Irish village struggling in the aftermath of the financial crash in this slim but devastating novel
Non-fiction
10 Billion by Stephen Emmott (Penguin)
What will be the consequences of unchecked human expansion? A scientist’s brief, brutal and unignorable manifesto against complacency in the face of inexorable population growth and climate change


  
Non-fiction
Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki (Chatto & Windus)
The hidden sexual politics of the Arab world via interviews, statistics, opinion polls and personal reminiscences. A personal and humorous account by an award-winning Cairo-based journalist.
Non-fiction
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz (Chatto & Windus)
The drama of ordinary lives told through 31 remarkable psychoanalytic case studies. A moving and mesmerising insight into the therapeutic process.
Non-fiction
Money: The Unauthorised Biography by Felix Martin (Bodley Head)
From the huge stones used as currency on the Pacific island of Yap to the banking crisis of today – a fresh, lively study into what money actually is.

 
Non-fiction
The Society of Timid Souls by Polly Morland (Profile Books)
A study of bravery in the face of stage fright, the bullring and the battlefield. A spirit-boosting companion in our age of anxiety.
The readers' choice
Poetry
The Shipwrecked House by Claire Trévien (Penned in the Margins)
This 'playful and surreal' small-press poetry collection, influenced by the sea and the poet’s Breton childhood, was the readers’ nomination for this year.

Not-quite-new Book Round Up; How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers

The rather peculiar title is because these are not 'brand new' published novels but from earlier in the year. They did however all cause a certain amount of chat in the book world and I am only just getting around to reading them myself.

First up is Sheila Heti's How Should A Person Be? 
 
An unusual memoir style book, Heti ruminates in a philosophical way on her life as she contemplates how it should be lived. She does this through the 'character' Sheila, a playwright with a failed marriage who searches to find herself again with arrival in her life of artist friends Margaux and Israel.   Oftentimes crude in her very personal revelations, it is obviously the voice of a young woman who considers life in her own very unique way. Heti herself calls it a "novel from life". It was first published in 2010 in Canada before it was revised to be published in the U.S in 2012 and in UK/Ireland in early 2013. It was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Heti's book identifies that uncertainty of identity that lurks in us all, seeing how a friend behaves and wanting to emulate them or seeing someone pass us on the street and thinking that we'd like to dress like them. And it challenges that aspect of our insecurity. But it is the disconcerting openness in her talk on sex, which is in no way sexy, that sometimes just takes away from the real argument that Heti puts forward which is ultimately one on art and ugliness. There are many ideas to consider in this book, and it is a challenging read, but the author's voice sometimes just jars too much.

How Should A Person Be by Sheila Heti is published by Harvill Secker

Next in the round-up is Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. Published in March, it was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.
  
A clever concept, the main protagonist Ursula Todd born in 1910 during a snowstorm has multiple chances at life. The baby dies at birth, but no, the next chapter rewrites her fate in life and she lives to take her next risk in life. This double, sometimes triple take on one event is surprisingly easy to adjust to in the reading of this novel. Set at a turbulent time in history, all these major events are brought to the tale. The characters are masterfully drawn and the reader is quickly sure of the personality of the Irish housemaid, the cook, Ursula's siblings and her parents. Kate Atkinson fans will not be disappointed.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is published by Doubleday.

My final book in this round up is Dave Eggers A Hologram for the King which was published in February.
 
This book had me under it's spell from the start. The main character, a fifty-something divorced and nearly bankrupt businessman is banking on the success of his most recent project with a Saudi Arabian King. With his daughter's place in college under threat if the fees can't be paid and with friends and businesses owed money, the importance of this last ditch attempt is clear. But despite being sure from early on that this is a rocky road with little chance of a good outcome, we are behind him and feel protective when he is put down by his father on a long-distance phone conversation. His exhaustion with the path life has dealt him as manufacturing in the modern world moved rapidly to where it could be produced most cheaply brings a feeling of sympathy from the reader. Sure he's a bit of a loser, but we want to like him anyway. Tom Hanks is to star in the film version of this book and he is sure to be able to bring a convincing hang-dog element to this role.

A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers is published by Hamish Hamilton.

Dublin Live Art Festival 25-29 September 2013

I've just received a press release for this very interesting sounding festival

DUBLIN LIVE ART FESTIVAL 2013


"Dublin Live Art Festival 2013 (DLAF13) is a week-long series of events that brings together some of the most exciting live performance artists and curators from both Ireland and abroad.

Running from 25th to the 29th of September in The Backloft, Dublin 8. The Dublin Live Art Festival 2013 will assemble an eclectic selection of Irish live performance artists, alongside some very special guests from overseas, to showcase their work in one fantastic city centre location.
  

Visitors to DLAF13 will experience a series of unique performance art events reflecting the growing public interest for the genre and showcasing the high caliber of artists, working within Ireland, who consider live performance art central to their practice. DLAF13 will highlight the excellent standard of live art work being produced, both in Ireland and by Irish artists worldwide.

Many nationally and internationally acclaimed artists will be performing during the festival including Liz Aggiss, Bjorn Neukom, Áine Phillips, Alan Delmar and Weeks and Whitford. To complement the performances DLAF13 will also present a number of artists’ workshops and weekend seminar events allowing our audience to further experience and engage with this exciting art form.
 
About the Festival
'Dublin Live Art Festival 2013 is the first festival of its kind within in the capital to recognise the wealth of live performance art being produced at home and to celebrate the huge surge in interest and curiosity surrounding the art-form. Whether you are a seasoned visitor to live art events, or someone who is unsure exactly of what ‘Live Art’ is, this is the perfect opportunity to witness this exciting art form in many different ways. Expect to be surprised, stimulated, inspired, moved, stirred and shaken up as DLAF 2013 brings together the best of contemporary live performance art. he Dublin Live Art Festival 2013’s week-long programme of events promises to have something for everyone.’
Festival Director Niamh Murphy

Artists who will perform at Dublin Live Art Festival 2013 include; Áine Phillips, Liz Aggiss (UK) , Bjorn Neukom (CH), Weeks and Whitford (UK), Hillary Gilligan, Noel Arrigan, John Freeman and Elizabeth Matthews, Francis Fay, Eleanor Lawler and Alan Delmar among others. A highlight of the event will be Workshops with Liz Aggiss and a Masterclass facilitated by Nigel Rolfe (tickets required). The Weekend Seminar will include Jonas Stampe (CH), as well as talks, lectures and presentations.

For the full festival line-up visit: www.dublinliveartfestival.blogspot.ie
Irish Live Performance Art
The Backloft, Saint Augustine Street, Dublin 8
25th-29th September 2013