March PrizeCAT: A Prize That's New to You

Here's an opportunity to investigate some prizes that weren't on your radar. You could look at prizes from other countries, prizes for genres you don't normally read, or prizes you've never heard of before that turn up on this thread.

Here are some suggestions:

Audie Awards Audiobooks and Audiodrama in a range of categories, US

Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award Crime fiction, Britain
Ned Kelly Award Crime Fiction, Australia
Ngaio Marsh Award Crime Fiction, New Zealand

Sidewise Award for Alternate History Alternate History, International
Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Humour, Britain

Stella Prize Women's Fiction, Australia
LGBT Literary Awards A collection of awards, mainly from the US

Samuel Johnson/Baillie-Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Non-fiction written in English, Britain
Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize A distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place, Britain

Desmond Elliot Prize Debut Novel, Britain
Betty Trask Award First novels written by authors under the age of 35, Current and former British Commonwealth countries
Somerset Maugham Award Young Writers, Britain

Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger Books translated into French
Tanizaki Prize Fiction or Drama, Japan

Happy reading!

Here's the Wiki

Suggestions are very welcome. This is a small selection, from a tiny number of countries. This Wikipedia page lists literary awards by country.

I just read an Australian debut novel, Abomination by Ashley Goldberg, that won the award for Debut Fiction at the National Jewish Book Awards, an award I was unaware of. Shame it's a month early! I'm going to have a look at the Tanizaki Award, and hope to find something interesting from an author I haven't read before.

ETA Hiromi Kawakami won a Tanizaki Award for Strange Weather in Tokyo, which is available as an ebook, but in KoboPlus I found her Record of a Night Too Brief, which won the Akutagawa Prize. It was established in 1935 and, along with money, the winner receives a pocket watch. There are lots of fascinating prizes out there!

It's also worth checking a book's main page to see if it has won any awards. Scroll down and you'll find Awards near the bottom, after the reviews and before Common Knowledge.

>2 pamelad: Well, as I love Japanese literature, I was going to check out the Tanizaki Award. Then I read your second post and a book I have sitting here is on the list, Strange Weather in Tokyo. So looks like it will be that one!

Oh, this will be interesting!

I’ve been paying attention to the prizes won by books I’ve been looking at on LT, and I’ve been compiling a list of “new to me” awards. I think some of these are probably very familiar to folks from the respective countries, or who follow particular genres, but they’re new to me:

Alex Award—Books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults
Anthony Award—Mystery writers
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award—Books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and human diversity
Australian Book Industry Awards
Barry Award—Crime fiction
BookPeople Booksellers' Choice Award—a.k.a. Australian Booksellers' Choice Awards
Davitt Award—Australian crime fiction by women
The Kitschies (best name ever!)—Novels containing speculative or fantastic elements that best fulfill the criteria of intelligent, progressive and entertaining
National Outdoor Book Awards
Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award—Theakston's Old Peculier is a British brewing company

When I looked at my awards lists here, one of the first ones I came across was the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award which was new to me. I'm going to read The Trees by Percival Everett which won the award in 2022 and had been a BB for me from a few people.

A new prize and so new to everyone is the Women's Prize for Nonfiction, the longlist for which was announced today.

Here's a double for the CalendarCAT and the PrizeCAT: Milkman by Anna Burns.

Anna Burns is an author from Northern Ireland. Her first novel, No Bones was shortlisted for the 2002 Orange Prize. Her novel, Milkman won the 2018 Man Booker Prize, the 2019 Orwell Prize for political fiction, and the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

>7 Robertgreaves: Thanks for the reminder! I had that on my calendar to check out the longlist. Great idea as it is definitely new to everyone!

>8 pamelad: I enjoyed Milkman.

I was looking through the various Awards in LT, and I came across a few where I had TBR books I'd like to read soon, and that I had never heard of, so I'll pick from these, depending on what fits with other CATS/KITS:

Lillian Smith Award - The Lillian Smith Book Awards honors those authors who, through their writing, carry on Smith's legacy of elucidating the condition of racial and social inequity and proposing a vision of justice and human understanding.
The Lords of Discipline

Richard Wall Memorial Award - Richard Wall Memorial Award honors a work of exceptional scholarship in the field of recorded or broadcast performance (film, television, radio, etc.).
High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic

Nautilus Book Award - The Nautilus Awards represents "Better Books for a Better World." Now in its 15th year, this unique book award program has continued to gain prestige with authors and publishers around the world as it seeks, honors, awards and promotes print books that inspire and connect our lives as individuals, communities and global citizens.
Orphan Train
Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man
We Need New Names

Mythopoeic Award - The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature is given to the fantasy novel, multi-volume novel, or single-author story collection for adults published during the previous year that best exemplifies “the spirit of the Inklings.” (I had never heard of the Inklings before - J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams).
Only Begotten Daughter
American Gods
Neverwhere
Coraline
Unfinished Tales
Watership Down

Sunburst Award - The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award based on excellence of writing in two categories: adult and young adult. The awards are presented annually to Canadian writers with a speculative fiction novel or book-length collection of speculative fiction published any time during the previous calendar year.
Fifteen Dogs
The Heart Goes Last
The Chronoliths
Little Brother

>10 LisaMorr: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature: now that's a tongue twister! It's also new to me and I'm delighted to see Watership Down on the list. I just found a near-pristine copy at my charity bookshop. Serendipity!

>11 MissWatson: Excellent! That's one I'm strongly considering. I was just thinking it could fit the RandomCAT as well.

I'm planning to read The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope by Margaret Atwood. This book was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Awards (Finalist – Adult Literature – 2006). I did not know there was such an award.

Thanks everyone for all the new prize suggestions, especially the lists from >5 Charon07: and >10 LisaMorr:.

>12 LisaMorr: And the CalendarCAT!

>14 pamelad: And AlphaKIT! I'll get a lot of mileage out of that one!

I'm reading Tinderbox, which won the Edgar Award for crime, which also hits this month's ScaredyKIT

I'm looking up a few different awards, thinking they are new to me, but I see that I do have some I've already read!

I’m planning on reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, winner of the 2020 Kitschies Red Tentacle Award.

>10 LisaMorr: I am obsessed with The Inklings - how had I never heard of this award?! Thank you for bringing it to our attention. :)

Having just looked it up, there is also an award for Childrens Fantasy and they have Young Adult Fantasy has just been introduced this year. Definitely need to check out the list of prior winners!

And hold the press! There is an Inklings Scholarship Award?! I have only heard of about half these books, so looks like I have a LOT of reading ahead of me just in this category!

>19 JayneCM: You're very welcome! I love all the discoveries in this group!

Like for example, the Kitschies Red Tentacle Award: The Red Tentacle is awarded annually to the novel containing speculative or fantastic elements that best fulfills the criteria of intelligent, progressive and entertaining. Thanks >18 Charon07: Charon07!

I pulled out An Artist of the Floating World as a 1001 book I want to read this month, and found that it won the Premio Scanno in 1995.

I finished Polio by David Oshinsky. This book won the Herbert H. Hoover Book Award in 2005. This award is given by the Herbert H. Hoover Library Association.

I've just started An Immense World by Ed Yong, winner of, amongst others, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award

>23 Robertgreaves: And I just discovered that the book I just finished, Crow Planet by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, also won that same award!

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne won the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award.

I read Maybe by Morris Gleitzman, which received the KROC: Kids Reading Oz Choice award.

The Green Road by Anne Enright won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award for 2016.

Like many others I've looked up, I don't recognize this prize, though it appears I have read a couple other books that have received it. I'm counting it, anyway, as I can't find anything where this isn't the case! Oh, this won the Aurealis Award in 2000.

Son of the Shadows / Juliet Marillier
3.75 stars

This is book 2 in a trilogy. It’s been a very long time since I read book 1, but it’s not really necessary to have read it, as it’s the next generation that is followed in this book vs the 1st. I remembered nothing from the first book, and I don’t think it mattered.

Liadan and Niahm (pronounced Nee-av – have to say I was happy to have the glossary and pronunciation guide at the beginning of the book!) are sisters. When Niahm falls in love with a druid and disgraces herself by giving herself to him (all in secret), her family hurriedly marries her off to the older man they want to make an alliance with. Liadan accompanies Niahm part-way to her new home, but is kidnapped on her way back. She is a great healer and has been asked to help some “outlaws” heal one of theirs. While there, Liadan becomes friends (and more with one) with them, and hates to leave, but needs to go home to her dying mother.

It took a bit at the start for me to get into this. I’m not always “into” fantasy (Liadan also has a “sight” of a kind), and difficult to pronounce words (thank you, glossary!) also make things harder. But once Liadan was kidnapped, the story really picked up for me. There were a few times I kind of lost interest, but there were many happenings that made the book “enjoyable” for me. I’ve never been a fan of a “story within a story”, and this one does contain a bunch of those (oral storytelling is popular in Liadan’s family). On rereading the review of the first book, I wasn’t sure if I would continue the series (obviously I did), and I do plan to continue on from here. It looks like it was originally meant to be a trilogy, but has expanded beyond that.

I read Strange Weather In Tokyo, (winner 2001 Tanizaki Award) - it was ok.

>29 JayneCM: Not much of an endorsement! I hope Record of a Night Too Brief, which I have borrowed from KoboPlus, is better.

I read Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, winner of the 2017 Costa Debut Novel Award.

COMPLETED An Immense World by Ed Yong, winner of, amongst others, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award

As mentioned in >11 MissWatson:, I have read Watership Down for this month's challenge.

I finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which won the Kitschies Red Tentacle in 2020. It was beautiful.

For our library's Same Page Community Read, I read Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland which won the (U.S.) National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction.

I read The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery which won the Orion Book Award in 2016. This is an award which looks at books that address the human relationship with the natural world. I will be interested to check out some of the other winners of this award.

I finished The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for the HistoryCAT and noticed on the first page that it won a couple of awards, including the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, which I had never heard of, so I will count it here also.

From Wikipedia: an annual British literary award sponsored by Wellcome Trust. In keeping with the vision and goals of Wellcome Trust, the Book Prize "celebrates the topics of health and medicine in literature", including fiction and non-fiction. The winner receives £30,000 making it "one of the most remunerative literature awards on offer." Sad to hear this prize was suspended/paused in 2019.

I read The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey which won the Bruce Alexander Memorial Award, which honors historical mystery writing. It was also a finalist for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award which honors works in a series featuring a female protagonist and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction which is awarded to a book that exemplifies the role of lawyers in society. I had never heard of any of these awards before.

I've read Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki, which won the Akutagawa Prize and Foster by Claire Keegan, which won the Davy Byrne's Irish Writing Award.

It's been great so see so many different prizes. Thanks for participating!

I finished Watership Down on Saturday, which was a finalist for the 1975 Mythopoeic Award.