The CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature. Known affectionately as the 'The Nib', is Australia's premier literary award acknowledging excellence in research by Australian authors writing literary works. The award is now in its 7th year, and with a new sponsor, Copyright Agency Limited’s (CAL) Cultural Fund providing increased prize money. Good on CAL for supporting an important award in an oft neglected literary niche. Waverley is a local council located in the major Australian City of Sydney. The current Mayor is Sally Betts (right).
The Award recognises excellence in research in the creation of a literary work of merit, published during the 12 months prior to 30 June. It was launched at the 2002 Sydney Writers Festival. Other factors considered by the judges include readability, innovation, knowledge and literary merit, and value to the community. The Award is open to all kinds of fiction and non-fiction by authors who are citizens or permanent residents of Australia.
The distinguished playwright and author, Alex Buzo, was a foundation committee member who contributed significantly to the establishment and success of the award.
Previous winners of the award are Tim Low (2002), Barry Hill (2003), Geoffrey Blainey (2004), Helen Garner (2005), Gideon Haigh (2006) and John Bailey (2007).
Our thanks to Denis Moore of Waverley Library for alerting us to the award and providing details.
2008 Shortlists | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 |2002
Christopher Koch Wins 2008 Nib” with The Memory Room.
26th November - Longlisted for the Miles, Shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards and currently on the Dublin IMPAC Interantional Longlonglonglist (146 books) , Tasmanian author, Christopher Koch (left), has reeled in a big-one with the well regarded CAL Waverley Library Award, aka 'The Nib'.
It is the first time that a novel has won the seven year-old award.
Six authors had made the shortlist cut from a record 165 nominations drawn from all Australian states for this years prize. Each of those received the Alex Buzo Prize with Mr. Koch $20,000 better off for a bit of Xmas cheer and a Blue Ribbon.
Christopher Koch The Memory Room (Vintage/ Random House)
Vincent is orphaned early, and his boyhood in Tasmania is spent with an elderly aunt.His fascination with secrecy and espionage - and much else besides - is shared to an uncanny degree by Erika Lange, daughter of a post-World War German immigrant. She too has lost her mother, and she and Vincent see themselves as twin spirits, inhabiting a shared, platonic world of fantasy and ritual. At University, Vincent aims to enter Foreign Affairs - an ambition shared by his easygoing friend Derek Bradley. However, in his final year, Vincent is recruited by ASIS - Australia's overseas secret intelligence service - and his adolescent dream becomes reality. Erika becomes a journalist, eventually entering the overseas service as a press officer. She is an attractive and magnetic woman, but her emotional life is chaotic. She, Vincent and Bradley meet again in 1982, when they are in their thirties, and have all been posted to the Australian Embassy in Beijing. Here, Erika and Bradley begin an affair which is ultimately doomed to fail. At the same time, Vincent attempts an espionage coup which ends in disaster for himself and Bradley. Both men are expelled from China, and are based in Canberra, where Vincent is confined to the ASIS Registry: the 'memory room' of the book's title. This is the year of Star Wars, and the final phase of the Cold War. Erika, also returning to Australia, becomes a television journalist, and enjoys a period of national prominence. The fantasies of youth have become reality for Erika and Vincent, and lead to a tragic climax for them both. It is left to Bradley, who inherits Vincent's diaries, to contemplate their fate. Although The Memory Room deals with espionage, its aims go far beyond those of a thriller. A psychological study of a brilliant but eccentric secret intelligence operative, it is also an exploration of the mystical nature of secrecy itself, and of the consequences of a shared obsession. About Christopher Koch Judges comments:To become a spy, one must develop a taste for secrecy as well as learning the skills of concealment. Yet for Christopher Koch fascination lies in the nature of the psychological need which might propel a person into a life of espionage. In exploring the impulses which lead his characters, Vincent Austin and Erica Lange, from an innocent world of make-believe to real-life deceptions in the context of the last years of the Cold War, and then to tragedy, he has researched in convincing detail the actual operations of professional secret agents. His novel also depicts China with the same evocative richness found in his descriptions of Tasmania, Sydney, Canberra, Reviews of The Memory Room Nikki Barrowclough SMH | Simon Leys The Australian | Leonie Kramer The Australian publishers note: just out of interest I did a quick tour of our book retailing partners to see who is asking what for The Memory Room. Pretty line-ball, $22.23 -$22.49 for the paperback version between Seek Books, Nile and Fishpond with the latter a dollar cheaper ($43.96) at time of going to press (26th Nov) for hardback fans. Plus p&p. Prices subject to change. Most retailers online are bending over backwards with postage etc given the current trading conditions (Fispond free over $50 QBD free over $60 The Nile free over $65) KJP. QBD books au| seek Books au| the nile books au | fishpond books au|abeBooks australia & new zealand | eHarlequin romance au | cook books au | fishpond NZ | the nile Books NZ | amazon usa | | amazon uk | amazon.ca | chapters.indigo.ca 2008 'Nib' Shortlist
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No two civilisations have spoken so many words about each other in recent years as those of Islam and the West. And Judges comments: The position of the Islamic religion in modern-day society poses a question of the utmost urgency. While much has been written about it, most has come from extremists of one persuasion or another. In balanced, elegant prose, Waleed Aly shows how tensions are brought about by the mutual inability of Muslims, Christians and secular Westerners to understand one another's motives. Habits of dishonesty and self-deception are to blame, he suggests, for this mutual misunderstanding, which can only be solved, in his words, by "people like us". QBD books au| seek Books au| the nile books au | fishpond books au|abeBooks australia & new zealand | eHarlequin romance au | cook books au | fishpond NZ | the nile Books NZ | amazon usa | | amazon uk | amazon.ca | chapters.indigo.ca |
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‘Surely God weeps’, an Australian soldier wrote in despair of the conflict in Vietnam. But no God intervened to shorten the years of carnage and devastation in this most Drawing on hundreds of accounts by soldiers, politicians,aid workers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people,Paul Ham reconstructs for the first time the full history of our longest military campaign. From the commitment to engage, through the fight over conscription and the rise of the anti-war movement, to the tactics and horror of the battlefield, Ham exhumes the truth about this politicians’ war—which affected so deeply the lives of 50,000 Australian servicemen and women. More than 500 soldiers were killed and thousands wounded. Those who made it home returned to a hostile and ignorant country and a reception that scarred them forever. This is their story. (HarperCollins) The author Judges comments: No war before or since has had such an impact on Australian culture as the Vietnam war. As Paul Ham puts it, "in the late 1960s the war touched everyone." Thus there is far more to this exhaustively researched account of Australia's military contribution to the war than recreations of battles and discussions of tactics, even though these are expertly done. This book is also a comprehensive portrait of the nation which had sent its soldiers abroad to fight for a cause not everyone could support, a nation increasingly divided against itself, where an unwillingness to face the truth added to the divisions. QBD books au| seek Books au| the nile books au | fishpond books au|abeBooks australia & new zealand | eHarlequin romance au | cook books au | fishpond NZ | the nile Books NZ | amazon usa | | amazon uk | amazon.ca | chapters.indigo.ca |
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Based on a true story this is a compelling and intriguing family saga - a novel of closely guarded family secrets, public shame and private passion. Description The story of two fiercely strong women, mother and daughter, one determined never to explain her choices and the other equally as determined to dig deeply and unrelentingly for the truth. About Catherine Jinks Judges comments: Louisa Atkinson was the first Australian-born woman novelist, and in her short life she was also a successful journalist and a respected naturalist. Yet her childhood was shadowed by the death of her father and her mother's unhappy remarriage. Using the historical framework of Atkinson's biography, and meticulous research into every aspect of 19th century life in Australia, Catherine Jinks writes in the persona of Atkinson's older sister Charlotte to create a novel of perfect construction and powerful themes, including murder, madness, and the lasting impact concealment of the truth can have on every member of a family. QBD books au| seek Books au| the nile books au | fishpond books au|abeBooks australia & new zealand | eHarlequin romance au | cook books au | fishpond NZ | the nile Books NZ | amazon usa | | amazon uk | amazon.ca | chapters.indigo.ca |
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Kathy Marks Pitcairn - Paradise Lost (Fourth Estate/ Harper Collins)
Why is it that Australians are still misled by myths about their convict heritage? Why are so many family historians surprised to find a convict ancestor in their family trees? Why did an entire society collude to cover up its past?Babette Smith traces the stories of hundreds of convicts over the 80 years of convict transportation to Australia. Putting a human face on the convicts' experience, she paints a rich picture of their crimes in Britain and their lives in the colonies. We know about Port Arthur, Norfolk Island, chaingangs and floggings, but this was far from the experience of most. In fact, most convicts became good citizens and the backbone of the new nation. So why did we need to hide them away? A Thomas Keneally, Booker prize winning novelist and author of The Commonwealth of Thieves' Australia's Birthstain explodes many myths of the past and gives us a much better understanding of what actually happened, and the effects of this on the Australian community...should be read by everyone interested in Australian history.'A.G.L. Shaw, author of Convicts and the Coloniesand formerly Professor of History, Monash University, Victoria'A thoughtful, challenging and well-researched study, this book shows how Australians have viewed their convict past. Through a sample of 1100 convicts it also brings to life some of the men and women who were transported here.'Emeritus Professor Brian Fletcher, University of Sydney Judges comments: Though things have changed in recent years, for most of the time since Australia was founded it has been a source of embarrassment for many that the nation began as a convict settlement. For families with social pretensions, a convict ancestor was once a source of shame, though now it might be a status symbol. Among many interesting ideas in this densely researched account of Australia's long period as a convict colony, Babette Smith makes the point that one of the deepest motives in the campaign to abolish the transportation of convicts to Australia was homophobia: in the 19th century, it was felt that the convict colonies were "incubators of homosexuality". For that reason the truth about our past was covered up and mythologised for many years; in this book the myths and the facts are decisively disentangled. |
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Winners and Shortlisted Authors 2002 - 2007Award sponsored by Westfield during these Years Winner: John Bailey Mr Stuart’s Track [Macmillan]
John Bailey Mr Stuart’s Track [Macmillan] back to top Winner: Gideon Haigh Asbestos House [Scribe Publications] Other Shortlisted: Gideon Haigh Asbestos House [Scribe Publications] back to top Winner: Helen Garner Joe Cinque’s Consolation [Picador/Pan Macmillan]
Inga Glendinnen Dancing with Strangers [Text Publishing] back to top Winner: Barry Hill Broken Song [Knopf]
Winner: Tim Low The New Nature [Viking]
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What is a spy? Are they born, or are they made?'
no two seem to have communicated less. People Like Us confronts the themes that define this chasm head-on: women, jihad, secularism, terrorism, reformation and modernity. Its piercing examination of these subjects reveals our thoughtless and destructive tendency to assume that the world's problems could be solved if only everyone became more like us. The result is deep mutual ignorance and animosity, reinforced by both Muslim and Western commentators. As a Muslim born and raised in Australia, Waleed Aly stands at the intersection of these two civilisations. In this book, he draws on his knowledge of Western and Islamic intellectual traditions to present an analysis that is surprising and challenging, but always enlightening.
Island where Fletcher Christian's descendants live, was until recently a rarely visited English-run Polynesian outpost perched in the South Pacific; a tropical paradise. But in 1999, British police, alerted by unsettling reports of a rape, descended on the island. Their investigation developed into a major inquiry that revealed that Pitcairn was the site of widespread and horrific sexual abuse instigated by the island men on girls as young as twelve. Scarcely a man on the island was untainted by the allegations, and almost none of the women had escaped, though most residents feigned ignorance, even when their own daughters were abused. Abusers included the magistrates and police officers as well as brothers and uncles. Few of the victims were able to leave the island; those who did never went back. Kathy Marks was one of a handful of journalists permitted to live on the island while she reported on the ensuing trial and witnessed Pitcairn's domestic workings first hand. In this riveting account, she documents a society gone badly astray, leavi
ng lives shattered, codes broken and a paradise truly lost.
ustralia's Birthstain rewrites the story of Australia's convict foundations, revealing the involvement of British politicians and clergy in creating a birthstain that reached far beyond convict crimes. Its startling conclusion offers a fresh perspective on our past.'Babette Smith's arguments will be hotly debated, but there is no doubting the fascination or drama of this study of the stain we pretend is not there.'
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