National Book Critics Circle Award Winners Announced, the Top 40 Bad Books, and More

by Staff
3.12.10

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:

The National Book Critics Circle Award winners and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize regional winners were announced last night. For the NBCC Awards, Rae Armantrout's Versed won for poetry, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall won for fiction, and Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science won for nonfiction. The four Commonwealth regional winners will go on to compete for the global prize next month. 

In other prize news, finalists were announced for the PEN / Faulkner Award and the Young Lions Fiction Award. (GalleyCat)

An Australian writer was refused a visa by the Chinese government on the grounds that he is HIV positive. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Pre-orders for Apple's iPad opened today, and the folks over at Gizmodo are pretty excited. 

In what could well be the endurance challenge of the theater season, a twelve-hour stage adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel The Demons was announced by the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City. Tickets went on sale today. (New York Times)

The American Book Review is stirring up controversy with its Top Forty Bad Books list, which includes some beloved titles like The Greaty Gatsby and Revolutionary Road. (Los Angeles Times)

The Chronicle came to the defense of humanities departments everywhere after a recent high-profile attack.   

A century-old bookstore in London was saved from liquidation by an American investor. (Bookseller)

In an effort to connect more strongly with the human side of medicine, more and more doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers are joining monthly book clubs "to discuss medical-themed literature." (Associated Press)