Ian Frazier has won the 2009 Thurber Prize for American Humor for his book Lamentations of the Father. This marks a repeat for the frequent contributor to the New Yorker: his Coyote vs. Acme won the first Thurber Prize in 1997.
Runners-up for the Thurber Prize this year were:
- Sloane Crosley for I Was Told There'd Be Cake.
- Don Lee for Wrack and Ruin.
- Laurie Notaro for The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death: Reflections on Revenge, Germaphobia, and Laser Hair Removal.
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The shortlist for the Writers' Trust of Canada prizes, according to the National Post, includes:
Fiction
- Fences in Breathing by Nicole Brossard, translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood
- Generation A by Douglas Coupland
- The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon
- Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
- Eva's Threepenny Theatre by Andrew Steinmetz
Nonfiction
- Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life by Brian Brett
- The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World by Wade Davis
- Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds by Trevor Herriot
- The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships by Erika Ritter
- The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece by Eric Siblin