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2014 Thurber winner John Kenney (l.) with Dan Zevin, winner of the 2013 Thurber Prize for Dan Gets a Minivan. |
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John Kenney has won the 2014 Thurber Prize for American Humor for Truth in Advertising (Touchstone). The $5,000 prize was announced and presented last night at Caroline's on Broadway in New York City.
Meg Wolitzer, one of the judges, said of Truth in Advertising: "Readers need not ever have walked into an ad agency or watched a single episode of Mad Men to appreciate the wit, accuracy and punch of this smart novel. Satire can be hard to maintain over the course of a novel, but Kenney keeps the reader engaged and surprised."
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The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt has won the second annual Maine Readers' Choice Award, sponsored by the Maine State Library and the Maine Library Association and intended to increase awareness and reading of adult literary fiction.
The Maine Readers' Choice Award Committee Committee, comprised of 20 librarians, booksellers, literacy advocates, reviewers and writers, picked four finalists. The winner was voted on by readers in Maine, who were encouraged by Maine libraries and booksellers to read the finalists over the summer months.
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Finalists have been announced in three categories for the inaugural Kirkus Prize, founded by Kirkus Reviews to recognize outstanding writing by authors whose books have earned a Kirkus Star in the categories of fiction, nonfiction or young readers' literature. The winners, each of whom receives $50,000, will be named October 23 in Austin, Tex. The 2014 Kirkus Prize shortlisted titles are:
Fiction
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt (S&S)
Euphoria by Lily King (Atlantic Monthly Press)
All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu (Knopf)
Florence Gordon by Brian Morton (Houghton Mifflin)
The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach (Algonquin)
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters (Riverhead)
Nonfiction
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)
Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World by Leo Damrosch (Yale University Press)
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (Holt)
The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science by Armand Marie Leroi (Viking)
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty (Harvard University Press)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)
Young Readers' Literature
Picture Books:
The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet (Eerdmans)
Aviary Wonders Inc.: Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual by Kate Samworth (Clarion)
Middle Grade:
El Deafo by Cece Bell (Amulet/Abrams)
The Key That Swallowed Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos (FSG)
Young Adult:
The Story of Owen, Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E.K. Johnston (Carolrhoda Lab)
The Freedom Summer Murders by Don Mitchell (Scholastic)