The State Library of New South Wales announced that Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the Birth of a Dynasty by Tom D.C. Roberts won the AU$25,000 (about US$19,965) National Biography Award "for a published work of biographical or autobiographical writing aiming to promote public interest in these genres."
The judges' said the winning book "reveals how a critical engagement with a life that has been much written about, and richly mythologised, can yield new perspectives and insights, thus liberating the reader from the realm of myth. Before Rupert is deeply scholarly yet utterly accessible and enticing. The author draws on a remarkable range of sources, many for the first time, to show how the founding father succeeded in his boundless ambition.... Roberts has crafted a masterful biography, full of remarkable insights into a celebrated figure in Australian business and political history."
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Winners and finalists have been announced for the Writers' League of Texas Book Awards, sponsored by the Writers' League of Texas. Finalists and discovery titles can be seen here. The winners are:
Fiction: News of the World by Paulette Jiles
Nonfiction: The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer by Skip Hollandsworth
Poetry: Hammer Is the Prayer by Christian Wiman
Picture Book: Step Right Up: How Doc and Jim Key Taught the World About Kindness by Donna Janell Bowman